


Children of Magma

by SigismundAugustus



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Major Original Character(s), Minor Original Character(s), Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-11-14 04:17:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 25,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11200263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SigismundAugustus/pseuds/SigismundAugustus
Summary: Nearly 7000 thousand years ago, Homeworld created a new type of soldier gems to combat other interstellar civilisations...





	1. Chapter 1

Morganite squeezed her jewel case harder. Her life depended on this. If the diamonds were dissatisfied with her work she would be shattered, as she used so many resources for this project. But she hoped that they would be satisfied, they should be. But she still was quite unsure, as diamonds were quite fickle.

As the door opened and Yellow diamonds generals walked out Morganite breath out and walked in.

Yellow diamond was sitting on her throne, her pearl next to her. When she saw the Morganite she moved the contents on her table away and leaned in, to better see her.

"Have you completed you assignment?"

"Yes my diamond." Morganite put down her jewel case and did the diamond salute.

"Well then, don't waste my time for any longer"

"Of course my diamond" Morganite quickly opened the case and took out a stone.

It was oval shaped and was black with different color streaks running across it. The gem was quite bigger than quartz, but still far smaller than a diamond. She put it down on the ground and removed a small metallic apparatus from its backside. Gem rose in the air and a body of solid light started forming around it.

When the body fully formed the gem was nearly a half taller than the Morganite, putting it a head taller than an average quartz. It's was not only tall, but also massive, of a heavier build than any other warrior gem, a perfect soldier for a new era of war.

When it saw the diamond she took one knee and proclaimed

"My diamond"

Yellow diamond walked around the kneeling gem and her creator next to it, analyzing, observing, searching for any imperfections, but to her surprise she couldn't find any.

"It seems you have done a quite worthy job, but I see one problem with it. Why is there only one? We gave you enough resources to produce an entire squadron, where are the others?"

"There were several complications… This is the perfect specimen; others were just barely stronger than quartzes…"

"By how much?"

"Could defeat in battle…" Morganite hoped this would be enough… She knew that her situation was dire; she failed to create gems powerful enough to meet the expectations.

"Could defeat in battle..." The Diamond repeated. "That was not what I ordered… You were ordered to make soldiers stronger than a quartz, but you clearly failed at it, this is unacceptable! If you want to save yourself, your chance is now, so speak!"

Morganite had only one trump card to protect herself and so she threw it out, hoping that it would work.

"They can be made in only a few hundred years!" She screamed out, all of her faith put into one sentence.

The diamond seemed surprised. She then smiled. And uttered one sentence.

"In that case, begin mass production."


	2. Chapter 2

Alfa Obsidian looked around the last battlefield on this forsaken world which had become a graveyard for thousands upon thousands of them. It was their first deployment as a force, just several cycles after emerging. A force of 120.000 was pitted against a military outpost of terka containing less than a quarter of that. But the organic race proved to be formidable opponents.

The "war" was short, only lasting for several cycles of the planet, but it was incredibly brutal. Terka used everything to their advantage; they would ambush obsidian armies as they traversed the forests and jungles of the planet, mowing them down with their ballistic weapons, while obsidians were only given melee ones. They would lay traps, assault from several sides at once, fortify in caves forcing gems to charge at an easily defendable position, lure angered obsidians into kill zones, and similar tactics never even thought about by homeworld.

She herself only knew about these tactics because apparently a defect, one of several thousand thrown at the enemy to test their ability, had survived and found a document of some sort, which detailed terka defensive plans. It didn't require much intelligence to understand diagrams, and so it sent pictures of it to apparatuses possessed by leadership. How a defect was able to all of that was beyond her, but she had bigger problems.

She looked around the battlefield again. Her and Zetas soldiers were moving around gathering gem shards. She looked around again. Where was Zeta? She was a perfect specimen, just like Alfa herself, so she should be bigger in size than their soldiers, but she was nowhere to be seen. She had to be somewhere here, shouldn't she? Alfa looked around nervously, until one of the soldiers started moving towards her. She focused on the approaching gem, which was holding something in its right hand.

At first she thought it might be Zeta, but the form was clearly not hers, as it was quite unorthodox. It looked like a massive terka soldier rather than the form Zeta had taken. Its skin a mix of grey and light grey, rather than dark grey of other obsidians. Its gem was dark grey rather than black. Alfa at first thought it was a gem of other type, but then she realized.

"You're a defect!" She proclaimed loudly, surprised that any of its kind have survived.

"The defect." The monstrosity dared to correct her.

"How dare you correct me? You are a failed soldier, and I am your authority! I could shatter you instantly if I wanted to!"

"Like terka shattered the other general?" The gem protruded its hand forward and opened its palm. There was a small transparent box filled with black shards, and in the middle of them was a metal bracelet, identical to one that Alfa and other prime obsidians wore.

Alfa gasped. This could not be! How could a defect survive, but Zeta fall? This shouldn't be possible; it must be some sort of deception! A prime specimen could never fall to an organic species, could it?

"Will you take it, or can I just keep it to myself?" The defect asked with slight amusement in its voice.

Alfa wanted to scream at it, to shatter it for insubordination. But what would that accomplish? So she asked one simple question.

"Why aren't you afraid?" The defect seemed caught off-guard.

"What do you mean?"

"Aren't you afraid? You are standing here, a defect, in front of the highest gem authority on this planet, and you show no fear opposing me. Why aren't you afraid?"

"I watched other defects removed from existence in a short notice. I saw obsidians shattered in thousands by terka ballistic weapons. I saw a general shattered in front of my eyes. Why would I afraid now? Because some morganite told you that you are special? Well the same morganites didn't even bother to try to brainwash me, as they said I would be shattered during this mission. But here I am, after slaughtering my way into life and saving this whole conquest. I found terka defense plans and then proved to a bunch of angry obsidians that we can't just march into our shatters, that we need to adapt to win. You think they didn't want to shatter me, but I succeeded. So why I should be afraid?" The gem sounded tired rather than angry.

Alfas eyes widened, she now understood, what the defect meant by saying "The defect". She felt something clicking in her. The gem was right, at least about the last part. Why did they march in perfect shapes, while their enemy had the advantage?

But before she could say anything, her communications device sprang into life. She took it out and opened it. It was Yellow Diamonds Painite.

"Report." The highest commander of Yellow Diamonds forces asked.

"Planet taken, locals slaughtered, gem shards are being gathered, casualties three fourths, Zeta was shattered… Should we gather the enemy's weapons?"

"And why would you do that?" Painite sounded amused.

"To better adapt to fighting them and lose fewer gems…" Alfas argument was cut off by Painite laughing.

"You are amusing me Alfa. Why would you care? Your soldiers are almost as expendable as rubies. There is no need to preserve them; even you yourself are quite expendable when compared to the likes of me. The fact that so many of you survived is interesting on itself!

Now moving on. Anything else?"

"No, nothing." Alfa wanted to report about the defect, but stopped herself. She didn't want to tell Painite about that gem, she didn't know why, but it seemed a wrong course of actions.

"Good, several ships will come down to pick you up after a cycle or two. Also, shatter all the defect if any had survived." The communications device shut down.

Alfa put the device into one of her pockets, and walked to the defect. She only now realized that its form was bigger than hers, which was quite surprising. She took the box from its palm and opened it. She took out the bracelet owned by Omega and put the box away.

"Change your form." She ordered with a soft tone in her voice.

The defect transformed into a form that's similar to hers, but still had wider shoulders and thinner hips. It seemed that it wanted to keep some attributes of terka form.

"Extend your hand." Alfa ordered again.

The defect fallowed. She put the bracelet onto its hand and adjusted it to its hand.

"What is your name prime obsidian?" She asked.

"Are you trying to trick me?" The defect seemed confused.

"What is your name prime obsidian?" Alfa repeated.

"If you are Alfa… "The defect still seemed unsure about this, but after some time uttered a name. "Omega."

"Good. Now would you be so kind to order our troops to gather all of terka ballistic weapons?"


	3. Chapter 3

Alfa sighed, this went better than she had expected. Other three current members of the Obsidian council seemed to take in Omega quite easily, especially after it was able to squash Delta in a duel. She remembered the event vividly.

Just after she introduced Omega and its ideas to them, the rest of council, especially Delta, were furious. The arrogant Prime Obsidian challenged the defect to a sort of a duel. Both of them would gather around a hundred soldiers and would meet each other in a battlefield of their choice. Delta thought that she would easily win, so she allowed Omega to choose where they would meet. The grey gem chose a mountainous desert region on the planet they were currently located.

They were given a cycle to prepare themselves. Delta spent it gathering her best soldiers and getting them armed with best weapons. While Omega picked the first hundred gems who had survived the first battle and spent the rest of the day explaining strategy and tactics and teaching them code words and signals.

When Delta and her elite arrived to the rocky battlefield, they were surprised to find only Omega waiting.

"I guess gems don't want to fallow a failure?" The Prime tried to make fun of the defect.

"I wanted to ask you the same, but as I see, there are plenty of stupid gems to follow you into suicide missions."

"You are alone, you have no soldiers, and how are you planning to defeat me?" Delta ignored Omegas remark.

Alfa was listening to the exchange and wondered that to herself. Where did Omega hide its soldiers? And then she noticed several rocks around them moving. And she understood instantly. She saw this trick in one of terka books Omega had found during the cleanup after the mission.

"Maybe you should just give up? You are outmatched." Omega proclaimed its voice completely calm.

"And how is that? You are just lying, thinking that I will give in."

"You leave me no choice but to crush you with my fist." Omega raised its fist and clenched it.

With that signal several dozen of rocks scattered around the battlefield turned over and revealed obsidians armed with terka ballistic weapons. They took aim and started laying a devastating barrage into tightly packed troops of Delta, who herself started charging at Omega, trying to at least taking it out.

But even here she was to other prime obsidians surprise, outmatched. Somehow the defect was stronger than her and was able to defeat her in an equal duel.

After only a short while Delta and all of her soldiers were poofed. And even while the other members of Obsidian council were impressed by this, Delta couldn't take in that defeat.

Even now, as the council was discussing how their Obsidian armies could implement different strategies and weapons used by terka, Delta sat turned away from Omega, trying to not pay attention.

Alfa herself didn't pay much attention either. She was still trying to find answers to two things.

Firstly, why did their indoctrination about despising organic races and everything about them broke so easily? Did Painite find them so expendable, that she didn't even bother to assign proper indoctrination? Were they? But it didn't matter what Painite thinks about Obsidians, they still are loyal soldiers of the Diamond Empire. Their methods didn't matter, did they…?

She shook her head; she wasn't created to be a philosopher, that's a job of the prehnites.

She was able to move herself to another question, which somewhat unnerved her even more. What was Omegas defect? It wouldn't make sense that it would be classified as a defect just because of its coloration. Homeworld didn't care for aesthetics of a soldier; they cared for effectiveness, so there had to be something wrong if not with the physical form, then with how the gem thought.

"Alfa, could you help explain this plan, as Omega seems to be unable to." She looked at the table. A map was spread on it; on it little tokens of two colors were placed, clearly to represent different armies.

"Excuse me, but what's seems to be the problem? I have lost my focus for a short time." She explained herself.

"It seems that Omega is unable to explain the finer details of several strategies." While the remark sounded like an insult, Alfa could only see warm compassion in Betas eyes.

She sighed, stood up, took up the book from Omega, and started explaining, with some help from the defect when she wasn't able to understand several ideas. Now she knew what Omegas defect was.

After meeting was finished; Alfa was walking out of the room with Omega. She took something out of her uniform and handed it to Omega. It was some sort of a document. The defect read what's written on it.

"A permission to get a pearl? Why would I need one?"

"I don't want to insult you Omega, but you have shown that you are simply unable to notice smaller details in a grand scheme, so I think, you should get something that will."

"Didn't take you long… But can you answer me one thing."

"Of course."

"Where does one get a pearl?"


	4. Chapter 4

Pearl threw in another piece of debris into the machine that instantly chopped it up into small pieces and sent it into its compartment.

Pearl looked up on instinct, wishing to see the bright stars in the sky, at which she loved looking at, but the only thing she could see was the dim lights that illuminated the factory above her. She sighed and returned to work, collecting debris that fell down her during production hours.

Even though her body was made from light, she still felt tired, so very tired. She couldn't remember how long she slaved at this factory, but it must have been long, as the machines have been changed a couple of times.

She was assigned here just after her creation. It wasn't usual, pearls were quite rare and a sign of prestige and power. But she was different, she was defective. Her form and her gem were of normal shape, but her coloring was not. Her gem was white, almost transparent, which on itself isn't defective. But there was one thing about it that terrified the emeralds and morganites who inspected her. The center of her almost transparent gem was of pure black color and over a dozen of same color spikes protruded from it in all direction. This reflected on her otherwise light grey form. Most of her body had these black spots which originated from her gem, located in her chest.

Nobody wanted a pearl like that. Who would want a defect? And so she was assigned here, as the cleaner.

At first she tried her best to be submissive, loyal and a perfect worker. But no matter what she did, the worker gems didn't care. They pushed her around; they constantly insulted her and sometimes even beat her. She learned to avoid them, to hide from them. She stopped working the best as she can, there was no point in doing that, so why would she do it? They beat her dedication out of her.

Sometimes, she would see other pearls, when some high class gem arrived to inspect if everything is going fine and to talk with the emerald that was running the factory. These pearls were clearly cared for. Their forms were clean; they wore nice clothes, and from the way they moved gracefully showed they clearly haven't worked a cycle in their lives. It was a huge departure from her, whose form was covered in dust and soot; her clothes were a copy of those worn by the factory workers, dark, simple, though she did appreciate it covered most of the body, as working with the typical pearl tutu would be even worse. Her form had lost all of its grace from countless hours of grueling work.

She hated this place, she hated her work, she hated those pearls, she hated their masters, and her world had become nothing but hate for those who got everything, while she had nothing.

She lifted a broken tool from the ground and threw it into the machine. At least today the factory produced smaller weapons, cleaning up after cannon production was a very hard endeavor. Maybe today wasn't as terrible of a day as all the others.

Suddenly one of the doors opened and an Emerald fallowed couple of quartz soldiers walked in. They started walking towards her. Pearl wanted to run, but she knew that the soldiers would easily catch up to her, so she stood in place.

When they were near her, the Emerald asked.

"Pearl Facet-8L5Z Cut-8T2?"

"Yes…" She answered, denying it would be a futile effort.

"Your assignment has been changed; we are here to lead you to your next one." The technician spoke out, in a monotone voice.

Pearls eyes widened. They were reassigning her?

"Change our clothes to standardized pearl clothing and follow us."

Pearl didn't understand. The order to change to her tutu meant that she was being assigned to someone as a status symbol, or sent to perform. But she was defective, and had lost all of her grace by working at this factory. Was this some sort of new idea to show your prestige in higher classes? By getting a defective pearl? She didn't know, but she complied changed her clothes, and followed the emerald.

* * *

Omega sat at its table in its study. It had finally learned to read terka language properly, it took some time, but now it could understand everything written in the books of the creatures, which they had seized more of, by intercepting merchant ships.

It was fascinating to read about terkan ideals and understanding of the worldview. As he found in one of their books, information is the key to victory. And it wanted victory to be its.

It was reading about the organic species society structure, when the door to its study opened and a pearl was pushed into its room, with the door closing behind her.

She was clearly a defect. Her white gems core was black and protruded spikes, her eyes were mismatched colors and you could clearly see white spots on her otherwise grey form. She wore one of those ridiculous pearl tutus, and was squeezing some sort of a document in her hand. She was clearly terrified, as the gem in front of her was massive, and didn't look pleased with her being here.

She slowly walked to Omegas table and put the note in front of the obsidian. It took it and started reading.

"Omega obsidian, your request for a pearl has been approved and I assign you pearl Facet-8L5Z Cut-8T2. As you don't have the time to wait for a pearl to be produced for you, and we don't want to purposefully damage our own gems, we assign you this one. Sorry, she's not the right color, but you aren't either.

Signed by Yellow Painite, by the orders of Yellow Diamond"

Omega sighed, when Yellow Diamond heard about that it was promoted, she started acting like a huge clod. She was incredibly passive aggressive in it, and it was annoying. But its request was granted, and so it didn't care.

He looked at its newly assigned pearl again.

"What's your name?"

"Pearl Facet-8L5Z Cut-8T2"

"Name"

Pearl looked nervous, she looked around, she never thought about having a name, she looked at her gem. She had noticed that the center and the spikes coming out of it look like a stylized star.

"Star…" She murmured out.

"Star" The Obsidian said.

"Yes my obsidian"

"Could you please change into something not as ridiculous?"


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

Stars new master was quite strange. When assigned to this gem she immediately realized this, as it ordered her to change into clothes that she wanted, and even gave her half a cycle to do so. This obsidian seemed to actually care if she felt comfortable, which was one of the nicest things someone did in her life.

She didn't' really care for her physical appearance anymore, but she wanted to wear something which would make high class gems uncomfortable, as a little bit of revenge. But she also wanted to wear something that showed her affiliation with the defective obsidian.

She felt somewhat strange about her new master, but she couldn't pinpoint what it was. She had never felt a similar feeling about anyone, but she wanted to do something that this gem would like. So she chose to wear soldier uniform.

Later that cycle her master had to go to pick something up from one of the other generals, and took her with itself.

It felt satisfying walking down the streets for the first time and seeing high class gems react to her looks. Star felt amused looking at their faces filled with disgust. They clearly didn't like how she looked, but none dared to question the massive obsidian general who owned the pearl.

When they returned, her master ordered her to stay with it in its study, unpacked the package it had brought from their trip and prepared something on its worktable. It then asked her to play a game with it.

She cautiously approached the table. There were several dozen of different sized spaceship models, colored in two different patterns and arranged on different sides of the table by those patterns. On her side there was a sheet, on which she presumed were the rules for the game.

"You want to play a game with me?"

"I need to test if you have the qualities I need and we can't use real soldiers or ships for this, so this is a reasonable replacement."

So this is a test… An unfair test, as the obsidian is a general, and she isn't even close to being a soldier.

And yet, she picked up the sheet.

Star looked at the table, unbelief in her eyes. Her yellow colored ships have encircled the grey ships of Omega. She actually won against a general. She expected to lose quickly, but somehow she was able to outmaneuver and surround her master's fleet. It felt nice, being able to defeat a higher class gem if not in a real battle, than at least in a simulation.

But now she was afraid. It was still the first cycle under her new master, and she didn't know how would an obsidian react to a defeat.

But to her surprise the obsidian congratulated her, smiling.

"Well, it seems that I have been bested."

"You aren't mad?" She asked cautiously.

"Why would I be?"

"But I defeated you…"

"And that was what I wanted."

"Why would you want to lose?"

Obsidian frowned, looking Star straight in the eyes.

"As you know I'm defective, my mind is not of the best condition. This means I can't grasp minute details in the grand picture and that's why I need you."

Star realized what she felt different about this particular gem. She didn't hate it.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Star walked after her master and three prime obsidians in a corridor leading to a chamber in which meeting will be held. She looked amused at all of the guard quartzes and high class aristocrats whose eyes were filled with fear. Now she wasn't the one who feared, but they were.

She put her hand down onto the small caliber ballistic weapon at her belt and smiled when one of the guard's eyes widened in fear. When she felt amused enough she put the hand away and continued to follow her master.

She had already served Omega for over a year now and was a veteran of several battles, as much as a logistics officer could be a veteran. And while they were border skirmishes and nothing more, the fact that obisidian armies were able to push back the terka was something impressive, considering that the conflict was boiling for several centuries with many casualties but no results for both sides.

But these victories were brought not the way that the gem authority had wanted. Diamonds, especially Yellow openly showed that she despised these soldiers created by her own wish. She hated that obsidians used technology and tactics used by the enemy. She despised that under their rule the gem hierarchy was quite flexible. She couldn't bear the fact that defects were not shattered but allowed to survive as long as they fulfilled their function. If she ruled only by emotions she would have ordered to shatter them all. But Diamonds were quite pragmatic and they needed the endless armies of obsidians. So obsidians were granted some autonomy. But only as long as they keep their way of ruling only in the worlds conquered and colonized by them.

But it didn't meant that the prime obsidians, who were growing more and more tired of the Great Diamond Authority, didn't find a way to show their disrespect for what diamonds have built.

Star was one of them, and she loved every moment of it. They got her physical clothes, a huge amount of jewelry and made weapons just for her.

It was barely possible to not laugh when she saw the faces of guards and gem aristocracy, when a pearl walked around wearing terka aristocrat clothes and jewelry and carrying unique weapons.

And while this was a grave disrespect to the authority, it was nothing compared to what the obsidians had suffered. They were forced to throw themselves at fortified walls en masse because agates and painites got bored. They had to slaughter out entire cities by charging into them and battling for every inch covering streets in black shards and purple blood. Nobody had to be sparred, obsidians were ordered to execute all. But many of them were forced to emerge early and much more weren't even trained mentally.

Entire battalions broke mentally and were harvested; several shattered themselves with their ballistic weapons. Others tried to rebel against this, like Epsilon who couldn't bring herself to exterminate a cornered family unit. She was too empathic of the organic species, and couldn't bear herself to murder noncombatants.

Omega was there, and was forced to shatter her by Yellow Painite who oversaw the operation. Her soldiers tried to defend her, so Omegas "Sharded" were forced to engage their own, after that followed the purges of Epsilons personnel and hunts for deserters. Both Star and Omega were forced to shatter many by themselves,

Both of them changed after that. Shattering your friends and comrades was not the most emotionally stable thing to do. And after that both of them wanted to hunt down and torment every single one of their superiors, but this wasn't an option. They may have hated their leaders, but they were dependant on them and still somewhat respected them. And so they had to take it out on something else. The Pact seemed as the only natural solution. Not the best solution, but the one that let them hide their current instability from others. It also helped Star not to want to shatter everyone in the room if they weren't an obsidian or served one. The only thing that she didn't like about it was the fact that she enjoyed it, especially when it was her time…

Star blinked several times, moving herself away from such thoughts and continued following her master.


	7. Chapter 7

Blue Diamond was discussing colonization plans by Pink Diamond with several of her advisors, when suddenly a light blue pearl, almost identical to the one sitting next to the diamond herself, ran into the chamber. Nobody turned to the pearl, except for the diamond herself. She looked at the transgressor, ready to order her to be shattered, when she saw that the pearls eyes were already filled with terror.

"My… My Diamond" The blue pearl saluted her with shaking hands.

"What is so dire you would dare to interrupt my meeting?" Blue diamond asked, her booming voice echoing through the room.

"Its… Its… Your Sapphires my diamond… We… We don't know what to do… They are crying… Some are screaming… Some thrash around…. Others… They just sit starring into nothingness… We don't know what to do my diamond…"

Blue diamond's eyes widened. Sapphires must have seen something truly horrible, if the typically calm and collected gems started to act like this. She stood from her seat, throwing a quick "dismissed" at her advisors and started moving towards the chamber in which her most trusted sapphires would gather in a coven to predict events which would happen hundreds of years into the future. She wanted to run, but she needed to sustain an image of cold and calculating incarnation of power. So she had to slowly follow after the still shaking pearl., her own pearl silently following her.

When they reached the sapphire coven, it was even worse. Now several sapphires were clawing at their physical forms, as if pain would help them forget what they are seeing. Several have already poofed, their gems lying on the cold stone floor. Others contorted on the floor, their bodies moving in quite unnerving patterns. Only the strongest and most powerful ones were able to control themselves, and even they were weeping and shaking. But even they seemed to be lost to the surrounding world, as they showed no response to the pearls that were running around trying to calm other time seers down. Even when a diamond entered the room they didn't respond. Only one seemed to be able to function properly and it was the oldest and most powerful sapphire in the coven.

Blue Diamond kneeled and took one of her first gems in her right hand. She lifted the shivering sapphire to her head and gently asked.

"What did you saw?" In situations like this a sapphires mind was extremely fragile, so one must act gently if they don't want to risk losing a rare and quite hard to make gem.

The Sapphire moved her hair from her eye and looked directly at Blue Diamond.

"Time after time shall the kings of the damned come forth

In the end times, Diamond fortress will be cast down

Its defenders crushed, its gates ripped open

Those that dwell beyond the light will spill forth

The space shall burn and the ground shall melt.

Shards of metal and gem will fall to the ground

As monsters duel quartzes over the fallen.

The dreaded one will look unblinkingly at its prize

It will sail through the sea of stars and claim its prize.

As its hand crushes the galaxy

It will sit upon the throne of the empress and roar in victory."

The sapphire collapsed and poofed in Blues hand. But this was a small problem for Blue now; the prophecy was by far the bigger one.

She put the gem down and ordered her pearl to contact other diamonds, warn them of the prophecy and arrange a meeting. There was no time; they needed to save their empire.


	8. Chapter 8

Yellow Diamond sat angrily in her throne, tapping her fingers on the table. The preparation for Pink Diamonds first colonization was enough of a struggle. The new Diamond and many of her gems have emerged prematurely by half of millennia, and now had to be supplied. This meant that production of spaceships, weapons and supplies had to be increased by a third, to supply the new Diamond, which on itself was not impossible to do, as they had already been preparing for her emergence since she started to incubate.

But now there was the prophecy to worry about to. And if their empire wanted to survive, they had to prepare themselves for what is to come. White put it out clearly, everything must be fortified to the extreme, more soldier gems need to be grown, and every planet of their empire must be defended like the homeworld itself.

This was simply not possible with the current resources available for them.

But Yellow Diamond had a plan, which would accomplish two goals. Firstly, it would remove the possibility for the prophecy to come true and secondly, it would eliminate a thorn in her backside that was becoming more and more annoying with every cycle.

The only ones that could pose a danger to gem empire were the terka. Against which obsidians had proved themselves to be more than capable winning against. And they had also proved themselves to be quite imperfect in the fact that they seemed to have this annoying habit of questioning orders of their superiors and ignoring traditions and laws instilled by the Diamonds. The worst was the fact that they couldn't be easily wiped away, as they numbered in dozens of millions, and more emerging constantly from the numerous volcanic worlds in the empire.

Yellow Diamonds solution to both problems was quite simple, to order the entirety of obsidian armies and their supporting personnel to begin a mass assault on the organic race.

It didn't matter if they succeeded or failed, either way, one side would be gone, and the other weak enough to be wiped out easily.

Yellow diamond turned to her pearl.

"Contact the Obsidian council; I have a mission for them."


	9. Chapter 9

Morganite sat onto one of the several chairs located in her personal cabinet, now turned consulting-room, and turned to the table and pressed the button of a communicator located on it. Emerald quickly answered.

"What do you require?"

"Who are coming today?" Morganite asked bluntly.

Her day was not the easiest; The Diamond Authority had ordered all obsidians and their supporting personnel to launch an all-out assault on the terka, so she, as the highest link in the command chain of infrastructural personnel had to do a lot of organizational work, which was exhausting. But she still didn't abandon her newfound duty.

"Typical roster, Omega and Star, Delta, and Lapis Lazuli, is facet and cut needed?" The emerald relayed the information.

"No need for that, thank you." Morganite turned off the contact and sighed.

She stood up and looked around the chamber. Its walls were painted light green and it was illuminated by a simple light source installed in the center of the ceiling. It was sparsely furnished, with only several chairs, a table with a communications device and a console on it and a huge file-cabinet which spanned an entire wall located in front of the door. There were no windows in the rectangular room, but considering that the facility was located in a volcanic world there was no need for those.

Morganite walked to the file-cabinet and opened the compartment where were all the files on her patients. She documented every single meeting they had, and would latter extract what exactly were problems that those who needed her help had. She would latter try to find a solution based on the knowledge she had gathered. Sounded very simple, and in many cases it was. Many of her patients only came once. But there were several who kept showing up and had so many problems she could swear they were defective, and in a certain duos case they were.

Omegas and Stars file was one of the biggest, as they were not only her first patients, but also had so many issues that it was surprising how they didn't break apart. Especially Star who was a sort of a conundrum for the gem scientist, with such an incredibly complex view on the world, that Morganite herself was barely able to understand her mentality half of the time.

She took out the file and opened it. The memories started flowing in when she started reading.

It was only several dozen cycles after the purging of Epsilons personnel, when she was contacted by the defective Omega. The defective obsidian asked if she could help it with a certain problem. She cared for the grey gem, even if it was the fault Morganite was in her current position, so she of course assured that she would.

It was not the first time the defect required her assistance. The first one was just after she was assigned to this position. Yellow Diamond sent her to serve obsidians after an incident had happened during one of her meetings. Apparently it was her fault that Omega allowed Star to walk by its side and not behind it. The diamond had a particular dislike for Morganite for nearly half a millennia, as she at first failed in her creation of the obsidians, and now one of her "creations" had insulted the diamond herself.

Back then she despised Omega for ruining her future. And so she was surprised when the defect barged into her laboratory, and dropped a ballistic terka weapon. She was supposed to reverse engineer it, so that it could be produced and not just stolen. At first she didn't want to help the obsidian, but her curiosity overtook her.

From then on she started to reverse engineer captured technology for the obsidian armies. Because of her every single obsidian soldier was armed with a ballistic weapon, because of her every Nephrite piloted a ship powered by dark matter drives. And as obsidian armies modernized, she grew closer to the defective gem. It was different to say the least, no arrogance, no elitism, no unnecessary cruelty, just a soldier, not particularly submissive one, but loyal nonetheless. A huge difference from the difference from the arrogant up stuck aristocrats she had to work with. It felt nice communicating with someone, even a defect, who cared for your opinions and ideas.

But that time was different…

Morganite opened the door to her personal cabinet and both defects walked in. The obsidian looked somewhat concerned and to the scientists surprise nervous, it's eyes darting all across the room. This was worrying, but not as much as the pearls expression. She looked disorderly. Her hair was disheveled, and her physical clothes looked like they were just thrown on. But the expression on her face was of pure bliss. She barely reacted to her surroundings and moved slightly clumsily.

It was the first time that the duo looked like this, and though typically it was the defect who would begin the conversation, Morganite asked.

"What do you want?"

"Is there a way for a gem to recharge with an outside energy source?"

Morganite was surprise by this question.

"I have no idea, why would you ask?"

Omega sighed, turned to his pearl and raised her top slightly.

Morganites eyes widened as she saw what had happened to the defective pearl. Her midriff looked like it was clawed at by a something with huge sharp nails or fangs. It was damaged so bad that her physical form was unable to regenerate, but somehow the gem didn't poof.

"What happened? What did you do?"

"Can you answer the question?" Omega sounded different from usual, it sounded commanding, somewhat arrogant.

They were clearly hiding something. Something clearly personal, which Morganite didn't really care for, but she needed to know the source of the problem.

"I'll find a way to restore Stars form, but you will have to talk with me. I can't fix the damage if I don't know the source.

The grey obsidian sighed.

"Fine… "Strange, Omega typically was quite stubborn. "But I think you should sit down if you want to hear this."

From that point her position in the obsidian hierarchy changed. At first she tried to help only Omega and Star. Then someone noticed, and slowly the knowledge spread through the higher echelons who served the Obsidian council…

Morganite shook her head; it seemed that she dozed off remembering what had led up to this. She didn't have time for such luxuries, she had work to do. She tucked Omegas and Stars file under her arm and took out one about Delta and one about Lapis Lazuli. She walked back to her table and put the documents down, sat down and started preparing for her clients arrival.

It should have been a usual routine…

"You can't continue doing this." Morganite stated to Omega and Star who were both sitting in front of her.

"Holding in the hate won't help." Omega exclaimed, with a tint of frustration in its voice. It was tired, and not in the mood for a deep conversation.

"Also, we signed the pact. You think we wouldn't if we didn't want to do this?" The pearl asked.

"You might enjoy this whole deal Star, but you should realize that it doesn't help your mental state, and with how often you need recharging, your physical one as well." Morganite rubbed her gem located on her neck.

"I thought we could get this out of your systems slowly, but now it seems slow progression won't work."

"But what do you want us to do? We can't exactly function without…"

"How about toning it down?" Morganite asked cynically, maybe doing this while being so tired was a mistake. "Tried that one yet?"

"No actually, we didn't try toning it down…" The grey obsidian looked surprised when it realized that it didn't try such a simple solution. Star started snickering at the absurdity of their current situation.

Morganite face palmed. Such a simple solution, how did they forget to consider it?

And then she realized why it took them for dozens of cycles, it was a fault of all three of them. Omega was defective and so couldn't notice such a simple solution, it could be excused. But Morganite and Star couldn't.

Star was a veteran, not to mention a pearl, while Morganite was a perfectionist, which meant that both of them wouldn't even begin to consider something that was not absolute…

After a long pause Morganite raised her head again and started laughing. Star was snickering with her, tears rolling from her eyes, while Omega was simply looking into the distance…


	10. Chapter 10

Morganite opened the file on Delta, who was the next one on the appointment list this cycle. At least this client's problem was not as complex as Omegas and Stars.

Delta was one of her first clients. She came for her first consultation just several cycles after Omega and Star first showed up.

Even at first sight Morganite knew there was something wrong with the Prime Obsidian, as her form was far smaller than the monstrosity that was Omega. Her form was barely taller than Morganites, who was around height of a pearl. But she was not only quite short for her type; she had also taken a petite form, more suitable for a nephrite, lapis lazuli or even a morganite than a soldier gem. Her form must have looked tiny compared to her soldiers. This size was quite strange, especially considering that her black gem was so massive that it covered most of her shoulder. She wore a grey uniform, same shade as her hair, which were several shades lighter than her dark grey form.

"Sit down." The gem scientist gestured at one of the chairs,

The obsidian did so.

"So… Could you describe what makes you fell… Uncomfortable?" Morganite asked.

"I…I feel weak…" Delta forced out.

"What do you mean? You are a prime obsidian, a perfect general and a perfect soldier." _Or at least that was who you were supposed to be._

"I… I know that, but… But I have noticed something."

"And what would be that?"

"That I am not even close to others… I mean I lost in a duel with the defect! What prime obsidian am I after that?"

Morganite had heard about the encounter Delta was speaking of. She was even able to get Alpha to show her a recording and explain the context in which the battle happened. It was not the prettiest of sights, seeing proudly marching obsidians mowed down by an ambush by the proto Sharded, while the defect basically annihilated the prime obsidian. The blow to Deltas self-worth was clearly massive. But Morganite had an idea.

"How much do you know about Omega?"

"Almost nothing…"The gem answered, clearly confused by the question." After our duel I only met it during council meetings."

Morganite thought, back then, that she could easily solve this.

"So you don't know?"

"What should I know?" Delta asked, clearly without any interest.

"That you were one of few things that was able to stand up to Omega, even if for a short time." Morganite exclaimed with a smile on her face.

Of course this was not true; the defect was powerful, somehow even more than the Prime obsidians, but it was not even close to what the propaganda machine run by countless gems of different types made it look like. But if Delta didn't know this, it could be used to help with her complex.

"What do you mean?" The obsidian asked, clearly not believing what she was hearing.

"I presume you were part of The Purge we were ordered to commit upon the forces of the traitorous Epsilon." After the gem in front of her nodded, Morganite continued." Then you know that the traitors tried to use fusion to overwhelm our forces."

"What are trying to tell me?"

"Omega was able to defeat fusions consisting of three gems, while being alone."

Delta looked up, for the first time in the whole conversation.

"Even if the defect is so powerful, this doesn't explain one thing."

"And that would be?"

"Why am I weaker than Alpha…"

What Morganite thought would only be one conversation turned into session after session every few cycles.

It turned out that Delta was true; she was weaker than other Prime obsidians. For some reason the gem scientist couldn't find her gem emitted less energy than was norm for her type. Morganite couldn't fix this; there was simply no way to do so. So she helped the only way she could, by talking to her. And while it did help stopping the obsidians inferiority complex from progressing, it didn't really remove it as every day the dark grey gem was surrounded by images of what she was supposed to be…

Morganite shook her head; it seemed that this cycle she won't be able to concentrate properly. She closed the file and put it next to the one about the leader of the terraforming corps. She looked at all three files arranged on her table. For some reason she had forgotten to put one on Omega and Star away. She looked at the folders, focused on them for no reason. Then she had an idea.

She quickly opened all three files, then turned on her console and started typing; only breaking away from the screen to flip a page in one of the files.

"Why is a Lapis Lazuli present during our session?" Delta asked, clearly annoyed by the presence of the blue gem, who herself looked similarly surprised at the events that had transpired.

"I could ask you the same thing." Muttered out the terraformer.

Morganite started questioning her decisions, but her façade stayed calm.

"This cycle you will not be discussing your problems with me." She proclaimed her voice and face emotionless.

"I have deduced, using information I currently have, that I am not quite in position to help with your current complexes as I am not experiencing them myself. And my analysis of my other clients dictates that it is easier to keep in check or remove psychological problems when the gem experiencing them has a possibility to express what they are feeling to another gem with similar complexes."

"Wait, you don't mean…" Delta started to say, but was quickly cut off.

"You both feel inferior, yes."

"But what makes you think that we will want to talk?"

Morganite stood up, walked to her worktable, pressed one button on her console, took something from her table, and then simply walked out of the cabinet and before either of her clients were able to react locked the door.

"Now you will have to talk, if you want to leave that is."

And then she simply walked away, ignoring the threats screamed at her by the Prime obsidian and lapis lazuli locked in the room. She took out the communications device which she had connected to her console so she could listen to the conversation.

After ten minutes the obsidian locked in with her stopped screaming and trying to break the door. The dark grey gem sat back down next to her with an expression of defeat on her face.

"So I guess we will have to talk?" Lapis asked unsurely.

The obsidian turned to her.

"I guess so…"


	11. Chapter 11

"So I guess we will have to talk?" Lapis asked unsurely.

The obsidian turned to her.

"I guess so…"

"I guess that's the queue for me?" The lazuli asked.

The prime obsidian nodded, to which the blue gem answered with a sigh.

"I was a just another lapis lazuli gem. I performed my function well enough to be promoted to lead a squadron of other gems of my kind on our duties. We tried to work as hard as we could for the great diamonds that created us.

But one cycle I got a message. It stated that we are assigned to serve the Obsidian council. So of course we arrived as fast as we could…" She started to shake.

"At first I didn't know why I was assigned here with my squadron, but then when I heard that there were other lapis lazuli gems arriving constantly I realized something… We were being phased out…

It seems that the Diamond authority was not satisfied with the fact that it requires entire companies of lapis lazuli gems to terraform planets. And so when they were able to create more powerful lapis lazuli gems we became useless for them. "The blue gem covered her face with her hands.

"So they disposed of us… Like trash, and where do they put their trash these days? Here, with your type. "She removed her hands from her face and looked Delta straight in the eyes. "In this fiery hell."

Delta wanted to interrupt, but contained herself.

"I… I feel so useless here. Even though I am assigned as the leader of terraforming gems, I am nothing more than a decoration on this planet, on any of the volcanic planets. I feel completely worthless. There is no use for a terraformer, who uses water, on a planet filled with magma. The cycles go by without me doing anything, hearing about other gems achievements while being unable to reach for anything myself. It feels like I am in an endless loop of nothingness. I am staying in place, when others move forward…

And the worst of all, I can't go flying. The only thing I felt truly happy doing, and I am stripped of it… "

The blue gem in front of her was now hugging herself and sobbing slightly. Delta didn't know why, but she stood up, walked to the crying gem and hugged her. For some reason she wanted to protect the Lapis Lazuli.

"I understand how you feel…" She muttered into the blue gems ear.

"But you are a Prime, you are perfect, you would never understand." The Lapis lashed out.

"I was created to be a general to the obsidian armies, a perfect soldier and a perfect leader. There were five of us at first. One of us fell during the first mission, gunned down, like so many of our soldiers, by terka.

After the campaign our leader introduced us to Omega. I was furious with the idea that a defect would be on the same level with us. I challenged it to a duel, and lost brutally.

After that, I started to notice something… I was weak, not even close to Omega, or even other Prime obsidians. I am a pushover compared to them… "

Delta felt that the lapis started to hug her back.

"I'm sorry."

"It's nothing, my problem is nothing compared to yours." And when the blue gem tried to say something she muttered. "Don't argue, you know it's true."

"It's not that…"

"Then what is it?"

"Can you let me go now? I feel strange…"

"Of course." Delta quickly removed herself and sat back on her chair.

After a short period of silence, the obsidian asked.

"Was flying the only thing you enjoyed doing?"

"I haven't done much besides my function."

"The authority is far stricter than I thought."

"They know best for advancement of our race. If their laws are strict, that's for a reason…" Lapis proclaimed with a hint of tiredness in her voice.

"So why did you enjoy flying?"

The blue gem looked at the ceiling, her gaze empty, like she was looking at what was beyond the layers of armor and constructions, which comprised the armored compound in which they were located.

"It feels incredible. It gives such freedom… In the sky there are no limits, no confining spaces, no authorities to order you around, and no labor you must do, as it's your purpose. I am truly free from everything. And as I accelerate all the worries just fade away. Nothing remains, but the feeling of freedom…

And then… there is the feeling of power… I just… I just feel so strong when the world is beneath me… It seems I'm so powerful, almost otherworldly... When I look from above, at those down on the surface… They appear so weak compared to me… I guess that's how diamonds feel?"

The lapis smiled, but she clearly wasn't happy. Delta understood that. She felt similarly, at least to the second part, during battle. The feeling of power, strength, prowess… She felt sorry for the blue gem in front of her. She didn't know why, but the she wanted the terraformer to be happy. But she didn't know how. No ships were allowed to leave any of the planets without permission from the agates assigned to supervise the obsidian armies, so transporting the lazuli to another planet wasn't an option.

Couple of other ideas that came into her mind were also quickly dismissed as impossible. One was an external suit; another was simply creating a space for the blue gem to fly around. But both of these failed to meet the criteria.

Unable to think of anything Delta started replaying the words in her mind." _And then… there is the feeling of power… I just… I just feel so strong when the world is beneath me… It seems I'm so powerful, almost otherworldly…"_

And then it hit her. She turned to the lapis lazuli, who was still gazing at the ceiling and stated.

"I might know what could help you."

The blue gem turned to her, her eyes filled with hope.

"Really?"

The prime obsidian nodded.

"Have you ever tried dueling?"

The blue gem looked shocked.

"Of course not, non-soldier gems are only allowed to wield weapons and receive combat training only at direst circumstances!" The homeworld programming kicked in.

"You should try then. I don't know about the feeling of freedom, but I know that dueling makes gems feel powerful." Delta stated, completely ignoring what was just said to her.

"If you say so…" The blue gem was clearly desperate, as she had agreed without any further arguing. "But I'm not sure that constantly losing would make me feel stronger in any way…"

"Oh don't worry, I know someone who is in the same category as you." And as she finished the sentence Delta was already regretting she opened her mouth. If she wanted to get to the pearl that served as the logistics officer of fleet Zeta she would have to speak with them. And being close to them was the last thing Delta wanted to do.

She almost opened her mouth to blur out that maybe she won't be able to arrange what she just suggested, but for some reason stopped. This would upset the Lapis, and she didn't want to do it. She had just met this gem, and yet, she felt inclined to help her. But why did she felt like this? It didn't make any sense. She was engineered as a ruthless general for armies of ruthless soldiers. Why would she care for a lowly terraformer? There was nothing in her programming that should have initiated such a wish!

And then it hit her. Yes this was the only answer to why she would feel in this way. She must be a defect… This would explain why she is weaker than other supposed prime obsidians, and why she would care for a terraformer.

She turned her head to the side and looked at her gem, lapis looking curiously at her but not saying a word.

Her gem looked normal; it was perfectly cut and pure black, no malformations or different colorations. After all her defection would have been a mental one if it wasn't spotted to this cycle. But she didn't know how to test this as if she was defective she wouldn't have known how a mentally stable gem would think.

She felt a cold hand land on her right shoulder. She turned to see the Lapis lazuli standing in front of her, with a worried look on her face.

"Are you alright?" The blue gem asked.

"Am I a defect?" Delta asked with a shaky voice.

"What?" the terraformer asked surprised.

"Do you think I'm defective?"

"Why would you ask something like this?"

"Because I shouldn't care about someone like you, but for some reason I do!" She screamed at the Lapis. "Now answer the question."

The blue gem took a few steps back, her entire body shaking, tears streaming down her face. She tried to say something several times, but only sobs came out.

And then the door opened and Morganite stepped into her cabinet. She walked to the Lapis, took something out of one of her pockets and handed it to the blue gem. She took it with shaking hands and looked at it confused and still sobbing.

"It's a permission for you to enter the arena to train with logistics officer pearl Facet-8L5Z Cut-8T2. She is already waiting for you." The Lapis nodded after hearing this and quickly ran out of the room.

Delta was about to leave too, but then she was stopped by a hand gesture from Morganite.

"What do you want?"

"You wanted to know if you are a defect. At least that's what I got, before having to run here before you decided to do something to this Lapis Lazuli. I have enough clients who deal with this, I don't need more." The orange gem stated sarcastically.

"Yes I did…"

"How in the stars such idea would even come to you?"

"How else would you explain me caring for a terraformer so much, just after meeting her? Not to mention her caring for me?"

"This fact actually explains more than you think…" The gem scientist walked to her console, turned it on and after several moments of searching pulled up a document. Then gestured at the obsidian, who walked to her.

In the centre of the document was a picture of a pink gem and her physical form. The physical form was typical to a quartz soldier, but instead of a white mane, her hair was pink and curly. Her features were also gentler than usually seen in a physical form of a soldier.

Next to the gem was a description, which included a lot of information Delta didn't understand, like formulas detailing how much time and resources are needed to create such a gem depending on many factors. There were also numerous graphs and tables detailing the possibilities of the gem, depending on many factors.

"What am I supposed to get from this?" Delta asked, clearly annoyed.

Morganite scrolled down until a list of possible abilities appeared. She pointed at a certain one, listed under "High rarity (Unstable)". It stated: "Ability to create a powerful empathic connection with other gems."

"But this is a rose quartz gem, I am a prime obsidian. This doesn't make any sense…"

Morganite rubbed her gem to calm down and the turned on another document. This one detailed prime obsidians, she scrolled until she reached a list of abilities. She pointed at one, which was under category "Failed", which listed the same ability: "Ability to create a powerful empathic connection with other gems."

Delta turned towards the scientist gem and looked at her.

"We are supposed to have empathic connection with other gems?"

"Well yes, you were supposed to. But it didn't really work as there was no clear reason why some rose quartz gems, created to serve pink diamond had emphatic abilities, but I did find several factors that could increase possibility of this ability appearing. But it seemed to fail as none of the prime obsidians showed any capability towards it. I scrapped the idea, it didn't work after all.

Or so I thought, but then your dialog with Lapis lazuli happened."

"You think that I my empathic powers work?"

"Well, why else would this happen?" The gem scientist took out her communicator and pressed several buttons. The apparatus started replaying a snippet of their conversation.

" _How else would you explain me caring for a terraformer so much, just after meeting her? Not to mention her caring for me?"_

"Now could you please leave, I have some work that I think would benefit you when I'm done."

The obsidian nodded slowly and left the Morganite alone.

"If you want to apologize to her, you know where she is." The gem scientist stated, before closing the door.

She went back to her console and sat in front of it. She turned on a hidden folder and typed in the code. A list of numbers appeared. She moved a cursor on one of the combinations and pressed. A blueprint appeared on her screen. She smiled. This project will be unusual to say the very least.


	12. Chapter 12

Star evaded another hit from the obsidian standing in front of her. The massive sword hit the ground of the arena, which gave her an opportunity to strike. Her blade plunged through the soldier gem in front of her, who unable to sustain her physical form and poofed. Star snatched the obsidian gem, before it hit the ground.

Another obsidian walked towards her, and Star gave the gem to her and then inserted her sword into its sheath. The pearl walked towards the center of the arena and surveyed her surroundings.

The arena was built using the crater of a used up volcano as its base. You could still see the black walls coated with remains of obsidian extraction process. There were several lines of seats aligned in a shape of a hexagon, protected by a short barrier in front of them, to protect them from anything happening in arena proper. Above the seats were several balconies where higher standing gems would watch the duels. These balconies were colored differently, to show what category of gems it was made for.

Currently there were also several stands, put inside of the circular arena, filled with different types of weapons for training purposes.

All in all, the arena could accumulate over fifty thousand spectators. And while it did follow the plan of a standard homeworld arena, it was tiny in comparison to the standard. Typical homeworld arenas, meant to entertain the masses could easily accumulate millions of gems. This arena was more akin to the ones located in exotic places for the aristocracy to enjoy.

But as population of Vulkan-5 was quite scattered around the globe, due to the planets quite unstable surface, several dozen arenas were installed over a single massive one.

Currently, Arena – 51 was assigned fully to the Shattered and their supporting personnel for training purposes. And that's why Star was here.

Originally she came here to improve her versions of several dueling styles she had learned from various sources about dueling; mostly gem centered, but with some ideas adapted from terka ritual combat. And while her master found it to a waste of time, it didn't object to her learning every style she could come across.

But now she had a task at hand. Some time ago Morganite had asked her to perform a quite unorthodox action. To teach a lapis lazuli gem to duel. Star accepted the task, mostly as a challenge, but also to test how well she could control herself.

After some time, the door to the arena opened, and a couple Sharded escorted the terrified terraformer in. They then left the arena, and were followed by other personnel.

The lapis lazuli was now standing in front of Star. The defective pearls eyes moved scanning the blue gem in front of her from head to toe. Her hair was dark blue and short. Eyes were of a similar, but slightly darker shade. Her skin light blue. She wore the usual two piece dress. And of course her gem was on her back.

In other words, a typical lapis lazuli gem, even though she was one of the highest authorities in the obsidian controlled space. But still, she looked high ranking enough…

"So you want to learn how to fight?" Star asked in a perfect monotone.

"Something like that…" The blue gem said, clearly unsure, of why she was here.

"Well then, are you ready?" The defective pearl asked, hopping for the response she anticipated.

"Right now?" Lapis moved one step back, with terror in her eyes.

Star chuckled at the sight. She enjoyed seeing the look of terror on the faces of those she despised. And while she didn't have any reasons to hate the lapis lazuli in front of her, the blue gem just looked so similar to the homeworld aristocracy the defective pearl didn't want to miss such an opportunity. And the pay off was magnificent.

"Of course not, maybe you misunderstood me. I don't want to duel you right now, at first you have to choose a suitable weapon." The pearl pointed towards the stands with weapons, and then moved towards it followed by the terraformer.

After only several minutes two thirds of the weaponry was dismissed, as the armaments were clearly too large and brutal to be wielded by a Lapis lazuli. Most of the leftover weapons were either used for boarding operations, which required smaller forms to be able to move inside terka ships, or were trophy weapons, used by Star herself for either training, or when required combat.

But even then the lapis lazuli didn't know which weapon to choose, as she had no idea how to wield one. While she was choosing Star projected several duels she herself had with terka officers, trying to find a certain style which would fit the blue gem.

After watching several special duels in particular the defective pearl got an idea. She returned the projections into her germ and asked the confused terraformer.

"What movements do you usually do when fulfilling your purpose?"

"I don't really use movements, only when forcing the water to resist gravity." The lapis lazuli shrugged.

"Another angle. What do you enjoy doing?"

"I love flying, but how will that help?"

"I think I know what weapons will fit you."

Now at least Star knew from where to begin. She spotted an interesting trend while watching the holographic projections of the duels. Terka commanders fought differently depending on what soldiers they were leading, and this gave Star an idea. She compared their dueling style to movements of their soldiers and found an interesting occurrence. It seemed that terka build up their fighting style, depending on what purpose they and their soldiers were fulfilling. Their fighting styles were based on the movements they were used to doing. The defective pearl decided to adapt this idea.

She took a couple of sabers from the weapon stand. Both were simple weapons with no decorations, only metal. Their blades were slightly curved and quite long, longer than the blade Star herself used, but were slightly thinner and lighter. Their handles had a single metal line as a safeguard for protection. The defective pearl put the blades into their sheaths and put them under her arm.

Star turned towards the blue gem.

"Change to your uniform."

The Lapis changed her dress to a military uniform which mirrored those that were worn by the quartz soldiers. Then she was handed both sheaths and with little help fixed them onto her uniform, a little higher than her hips.

"Why do I need two swords?"

"You'll see, now draw them both out."

The terraformer followed the command and drew out both weapons.

"Now what?"

"Do you remember what movements do you use when you fly?"

"Of course." The blue gem stated, still confused.

"Now try to move similarly, but instead of using your wings, use these swords. And try to hit me." The pearl exclaimed drawing her weapon from its sheath. "I will only defend."

The terraformer in front of her moved her hands several times, getting adjusted to the weapons, and then reluctantly attacked.


	13. Chapter 13

 

 

 

 

"Next cycle?"

"Like always."

Lapis closed the door of the arena smiling.

She was practicing with Star for several months already and was getting quite good with her sabers. She was no master of course, but dueling fulfilled the purpose she took it up. She felt free and powerful again. While dueling it seemed like she was flying again. She couldn't pinpoint why, but it felt so nice after all this time. She enjoyed every second of it, the intensity; the clash of blades, the dance like movement, all of this filled the blue gem with intense excitement.

And as she got better in the art of the sword, she noticed that her ideas of what was acceptable and not started to change slightly. She didn't know why, but instead of the typical two part dress worn by lapis lazuli gems she started wearing a military uniform, similar to the ones worn by quartzes, except for the diamond symbol, which colorless as she wasn't truly part of homeworld military. She also started carrying one or both of her sabers everywhere she went, which garnered glances towards her by both soldier and non-combatant gems who were perplexed to see a terraformer in such attire.

Lapis expected to be hated by obsidian soldiers because of this; after all, a proud soldier would despise a lowly worker for desecrating theher uniform by wearing it. But to her surprise obsidians didn't see it this way. And at a quick rate Lapis had made several new companions.

These gems were far different from any other soldier gem used by the homeworld. They were clearly good warriors, but they weren't very eager to fight, and weren't as aggressive as quartzes and ruby's. Lapis was dumbfounded by this, but didn't ask, afraid of their reaction.

She loved spending time with them, even though they kept calling her different nicknames relating to her size, as she was quite small and thin compared to their quite titanic forms. But she didn't feel mad about it, just slightly annoyied, which didn't ruin the enjoyiment in the least.

She closed the door, ready to head off to the barracks to meet up with her friends and then froze in place. In the middle of the corridor stood someone who she didn't expect seeing. Delta was standing in front of her, slightly smiling. Before Lapis could react the prime obsidian walked to her and hugged her.

"I'm sorry I acted this way." She muttered into the blue gems ear.

Lapis remembered clearly how the obsidian reacted when she offered her help, and wanted to push her away. She was angry, and rightfully so. She lifted her hands but instead of pushing the gem in front of her back, she started hugging her, all anger dissipating.

"It's nothing."

* * *

 

"A success I presume?" Alpha asked.

"As you can see." Replied the scientist, while taking notes on what was happening.

They were both sitting in front of Moranites console in her workroom, and observing an experiment that the scientist had proposed.

And it was a clear success, the lapis lazuli gem, even though clearly being angry at Delta just moments ago, forgave her after short time in her proximity. The situation had turned so much, that the lapis lazuli was apologizing for her behavior, even though she was innocent and begging for forgiveness.

"Should I turn it off?" Morganite questioned.

Alpha nodded, and the orange gem turned off the apparatus. She then turned off the data stream after hearing how the Lapis lazuli was offering Delta to come see her and Star dueling next cycle, to which the obsidian accepted.

The scientist then turned to the general sitting next to her, who asked.

"So, what is your opinion?"

"Absolutely fascinating but there is a chance that this won't end well."

"Care to elaborate?"

Morganite turned back to her console and pulled up a document detailing all the information she had on Omega, and then one which detailed the template of a prime obsidian. She put the documents side by side and scrolled down to the sections which detailed physical qualities.

"Look for yourself." The orange gem turned the console towards her comrade. Morganite let her study the information for several moments and then began speaking again.

"As you see, while Omega has huge amounts of metallic impurities in its gem, most of its composition is similar to that of yours and Deltas, and because of this I am quite afraid. If it develops any empathic abilities, with its understanding of the world…"

* * *

 

Lapis stood in the middle of the arena. Star was a short distance in front of her, grasping the handle of her sword and ready to draw it out of its sheath. Lapis herself had already drawn both of her blades, and was ready for combat. She could barely hide the fact that her entire body was shaking. Why did she do this? She didn't have any idea anymore. Star was better than her in every single way. She was stronger, faster, and more agile and had far more battle experience. So why did Lapis challenge her mentor?

She quickly gazed at one of the balconies and saw Delta standing there. And for some reason her negative emotions dissapeared again. The shaking stopped and now she felt confident and strong again.

"Are you ready?" Star asked in an emotionless voice, drawing her blade.

For this duel the pearl used a weapon known as falchion, it was purely of a black color and had no ornamentations or decorations on it.

"I am ready." Lapis assured.

Star smilled when hearing the answer. And then exclaimed.

"Let's begin!"

Even before the discolored gem could finish the sentence Lapis charged at her. When the distance was minimal she moved her weapons in a similar manner to how wings flapped down, trying to sheer her opponent in half. Star quickly jumped back, evading the attack, and charged at the terraformer, trying to stab her. The blue gem deflected this attack with the dull side of her saber, at the same time striking with her other weapon, aiming for her opponent's neck.

Star had no way to defend herself from the attack. Or at least Lapis thought that way…But Star had other ideas.

The defective pearl pushed aside the saber with her bare hand, losing most of it in the process.

Even before her cut off fingers fully dissipated the pearl regained her balance and punched the blue gem in the face, even further mutilating her already cut up hand.

Lapis was thrown on the ground by the strength of the punch, but quickly stood up, still holding her weapons.

Her mentor was smiling, and used what was left of her left hand to gesture the blue gem to attack her, which the terraformer did.

This time she attacked using only her right hand weapon, swinging it in a wide arc. Star ducked under it and mimicked the motion. Lapis quickly lowered her left saber and both weapons collided.

The discolored gem quickly rolled backwards and jumped to her feet. She didn't expect Lapis to be this good, and was positively surprised by this. And now she wanted to test how strong the blue gem truly was…

Delta was quite surprised by the duel. She came here expecting to see a dance, a performance, but instead this duel was far more brutal than she had expected from such gentle gems. Combat was only going on for a short period, but both gems were barely able to sustain their forms from how much damage they had received.

Both of them had numerous cuts, bruises and impact marks clearly visible on their bodies. But the damage they had sustained wasn't limited just to that. The pearl now lacked her left hand completely, while lapis had her nose malformed by the constant barrage of punches her mentor used to escape situations in which she would be defeated…

Delta was so focused on the duel, that she didn't notice a massive figure which was now standing next to her. She slowly turned her head, as realization dawned on her.

And indeed the one standing next to her was it. _Omega…_ It seemed that during the year she hadn't seen the defect it had chosen an even bigger form. She wasn't sure how big it was, but it almost reached the ceiling of the balcony, which was nearly twice her size, which was massive, even though Delta herself was only a little taller than Lapis. Its body shape was the same though. It still looked like a massive terka soldier, and was dressed similarly. It turned its head to Delta. And after several moments of silence it opened its mouth.

"I'm sorry… I hope this is enough…" It then turned around and walked out of the room leaving the prime obsidian confused.

Delta wanted to go after, but she heard a victorious scream and turned around to see Lapis standing over Omegas pearl, who kneeling down in front of her, accepting defeat.

* * *

 

"It took a lot out of you, didn't it?"

"She can be pretty brutal when she needs to let it all out."

"Then I guess another one?"

"You mean a recharge?"

"What else?"

"That would be rather nice."

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

 

 

"My Diamond…"

"Yes?"

"The council requests more gems."

* * *

Pearl could barely move with the stream of other gems from how much she was shaking. Her master had abandoned her. Why would she do this, pearl didn't know. She was a good servant, she did everything as was asked of her and never questioned orders she was given. She didn't talk to other pearls, when left alone with them, and didn't try to hide anything from her master. She always followed the rules.

Then why did her master threw her away? What did she do to cause such wrath from Prehnite? Why did her master have to be so cruel and sent her here…

"Why am I even here…" She murmured softly, looking at her light green hands.

A gem next to her turned her head and looked at her. It was an emerald.

"I presume they need a workforce."

"What do you mean?"

The emerald sighed, clearly annoyed with the pearls inability to use logic.

"Just look at the ground. The work is clearly unfinished and everything is hastily made." She kneeled and put her hand on the floor. "You can feel how rough the stone is…"

But before the scientist could say anything else, a figure appeared though the circle of gems that had formed around them. It was an obsidian soldier, wielding a ballistic weapon with both hands.

"What's going on here?" She asked, her finger lying on the weapons trigger.

"Nothing… Nothing important…" Emerald nervously muttered.

"Then get moving." The obsidian walked back through now dispersing circle of gems.

Emerald stood up and started walking, pearl following her.

"This is only proof that they need a workforce." Muttered the green gem under her nose.

"But then why are we here… We are not workers…"

Emerald stared at the pearl dumbfounded.

"I understand that pearls are not made to think, but even a ruby would understand what is happening. Diamond authority doesn't need us anymore, we are being phased out."

"What do you mean?" Pearl asked.

Emerald looked like she was about to break, but she somehow calmed herself down.

"We are outdated. I am not as capable as the newer models, and you, not as beautiful and graceful. We are useless for the elites."

"Prehnite would never change me for another pearl just because she's prettier!"

"We are all replaceable, of course she did. It was only a matter of time until she got tired of you. And now was an especially optional time to do so."

For the next few minutes they just walked as Pearl was lost in her thoughts. Emerald herself observed the amount of soldiers lined up next to the walls and calculating something in her head.

After several moments Pearl turned to the emerald and realized something. She bowed down slightly and proclaimed.

"I am apologize I allowed myself to talk back to you and ask questions without your permission"

Emerald laughed.

"Right now we are on the same level."

They walked for several more minutes before pearl turned to emerald and asked.

"Even if they need a workforce, why sent us?"

"I might have an idea…" Said the emerald as they moved closer and closer to what seemed to be the end of the tunnel.

The experience was different than they expected. Once they walked out of the tunnel they saw a massive well-lit hall, at the end of which were placed several hundred tables, a morganite or an emerald sitting behind each one. The walls of the room were light grey, while the floor and ceiling were black or dark grey.

There was a long line in front of each table, where hundreds if not thousands of gems were lined up. Emerald and Pearl were quickly directed to one of the lines by one of the numerous obsidian soldiers keeping order.

The line moved extremely slowly, but finally, both Emerald and Pearl reached the table. The Morganite sitting behind it gestured them to sit down, and so they did.

"What abilities do you have?"

"You mean our purpose?" Asked Emerald, completely baffled by the question.

"We know your purpose; we are interested of what you can do outside of it." The orange gem explained.

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

 

 

White Diamond surveyed the endless lines of obsidian soldiers covering most of the solid mass of planet Vulkan-1. She stepped out into the balcony so that she could be fully seen by the endless armies, who responded not with a diamond salute, as they couldn't, due to their equipment, but by raising their right fists in the air.

It was quite a shame these were a failed project, she thought to herself. Easily harvestable, quickly forming, efficient in both resources and their purpose… But at the same time rebellious and fragile… Such shame it was… She would enjoy having such an army…

White Diamond cleared her mind and opened her mouth.

* * *

Yellow Diamond looked at the horde in front of her with distain as she stepped out into the balcony. At least being here, on Vulkan-2 meant that she could finally forget this failure. The endless lines of borderline renegades raised their right fists as a salute. She could barely hold her disgust back at seeing them perform a salute so similar to the one used by the organics.

It took nearly ten years, but finally, she would be able to remove this filth from her hands. She looked up slightly at the thousands upon thousands of spaceships in orbit which were there to transport the legions to the front.

Yellow Diamond controlled herself and opened her mouth.

* * *

Blue Diamond stepped out into the balcony of a palace on Vulkan-3 completely calm, even though she had her doubts, was this truly the solution? She knew that prophecies so abstract could be changed, she had done it several times herself, but she wasn't sure this would truly work. These obsidians had already shown signs of disobedience numerous times, and were seen doing it. She of course disposed of every witness, but that still didn't help this situation. Who could be sure these rebellious gems wouldn't truly rebel when left to their devices, one of them had done such an act already, and so what would prevent others?

Blue Diamond steeled herself and opened her mouth.

* * *

Pink Diamond calmed herself down and stepped out into the balcony. She gazed at the massive army arranged in front of the palace on Vulknan-4. The lines of brutal dark grey gems raised their right hands in a barbaric salute. Pink couldn't imagine why other diamonds would create something so savage and brutal. At least her gems were supposed to be better than this.

Pink Diamond calmed herself and opened her mouth.

* * *

The majestic voices of the four diamonds echoed across the four planets, each syllable perfectly synchronized.

" _We are the gemkind, we are perfection made form, and we are the masters of the universe. But there are those who dare to defy our rightful claim. These children of dust dare to claim that the universe is theirs, that the future belongs to organic races. But they are all fools._

_While they tamed fire, we subjugated stars. While they looked at the sky, we knew the stars. And yet, they dare to persist in their claims. They dare to defy us, they dare to resist… And so they shall be crushed for their insolence!_

_You shall be the instrument of our righteous judgment upon those who dare to deny our right to dominate the universe. You shall show them the superiority of gemkind!_

_We the Diamond Authority, the supreme rulers of all gems, empresses of the universe announce the Vulkan crusade!"_

The Diamond Authority ended their brief but powerful speech. And as it ended, obsidians opened their mouths and responded.

" _As it was commanded, so it shall be done! We shall sweep all in our path!"_

And as the oath rang across all four planets, the endless obsidian armies started boarding thousands upon thousands of space vessels. And as those rose to the sky filled with soldiers, White Diamond smiled.

* * *

The Vulkan crusade began.

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

Citrine tried to move again, but to no avail, the debris was simply too heavy for her physical form to lift. While she couldn't see anything trough the smoke and dust, she could hear shots and screams. How someone could be able to stand, not to mention fight after such an explosion was beyond her…

She struggled again, but the tons upon tons of broken walls didn't move the slightest. The worst part was that she wasn't able to poof herself, as her gem, located on her body's hip would break.

She tried again and again, but then she heard a certain sound... There was no way anyone who had heard this particular ring could mistake it for anything else… Bolt guns used by the sharded. And they were getting closer…

Citrine started moving more intensely, she couldn't let them see her in such a position. She knew what sharded did to those unable to fight…

As the yellow gem started moving the intensifying screams of those who tried to fight back against the sharded were silenced by a certain sound. A brutal, savage roar, so powerful one could swear it could shatter metal and stone.

Citrine froze in place losing all of her determination to free herself. She knew what creature was able to roar so loudly and with such ferocity. It wasn't anything that the enemy deployed, that's for sure; it was something far more dangerous and powerful than Citrine could have imagined existing, besides the Diamonds themselves, off course. It was the roar of the monstrous defective obsidian…

Memories started flooding Citrines mind. Those times she stood in the corridors as the obsidian leadership moved through. She remembered both defects perfectly. The monstrous grey obsidian and its insane pearl, a duo which while at first comedic, became the nightmare of numerous millions of gems. Everyone who at some point saw the defect and its pearl were ordered to be quiet… And later, when the crusade was announced sent here.

Citrine shook when she remembered the recordings they were shown… At first those were just recordings of battles against terka. Sharded defeating… no… slaughtering, entire strike forces. Several hundred masked elites, armed with weapons more fit to be put on weapon platforms, against tens of thousands of organic creatures…

Citrine didn't know why, but the sight of these faceless beings marching across a field of mutilated organic creatures cut itself into her memory.

But that was not all; they were shown other recordings… Sharded butchering entire cities with such ferocity and efficiency that even the most aggressive and savage quartzes flinched.

Later they were shown even more terrible recordings… Gems fighting other gems… Sharded in small numbers annihilating armies of obsidians which should have been equal to them... Assaulting fixed positions without heavy weapons and emerging victorious… Purging entire cities, where the dissidents had fortified.

Their leader, Omega, overwhelming even three gem fusions… Crushing entire battalions, like they were chalks instead of soldier obsidians. Ripping apart artillery pieces and fortifications like they meant nothing to it…

And after all of those numerous recordings, which were shown as an example of what happens to those who don't follow the imperial hierarchy, the last one cemented it… In it a prime obsidian, a perfect soldier, a perfect general, denied the orders she was given, her soldiers followed in suit…

Omega and its sharded were ordered to exterminate and so they did… As the faceless butchers shattered obsidians in their tens of thousands, the defect met the prime… Swords collided with forces equal to supernovas as two obsidians clashed for their ideals. It seemed that both combatants were equal, but as the rebellious gems fell around their general, the defect overwhelmed the prime. The last image before the recording ended was the grey monstrosity driving a massive blade through the center of the prime's gem.

Citrine couldn't stop shaking no matter how much she tried. As she heard the shots and screams getting close, she was terrified; it was the first time in her existence that she felt that way. She was a quartz soldier, a brave, courageous warrior, but these… these sharded were something else, something fierce, something otherworldly, something to be feared and despised. And now they were getting closer…

Now she could hear their heavy steps as they came closer and closer. Their boltguns spewing death louder and louder.

A mutilated body flew through the smoke and crashed into one of the blocks that had fallen into her… Now seven massive dark shades could be seen through the smoke, how could they be so massive, the yellow gem had no idea… She could clearly see their massive ballistic weapons, except for the middle one, which clearly carried a sword or some similar elite weapon. Citrines eyes expanded as she realised that there was a leader between them. What kind of monster would be promoted to a lead such butchers?

Such thoughts plagued her mind as the first of the shatered started emerging from the smoke. She closed her eyes, not wanting the butchers to see her cry.

It seemed like an eternity had passed, but nothing happened.

And then suddenly she started feeling her lower body relieved from the weight of the debris. She opened her eyes only to see the shatered removing the tones upon tones of broken buildings from her, while their leader, a prime obsidian extended her hands toward the quartz, with a reassuring smile.

"Are you alright?"


	17. Chapter 17

 

 

"What are these?" Alpha asked as Morganite dumped a bunch of documents on her worktable and sat down in front of her, smilling.

"Just some documents for you to look over."

Alpha surveyed the pile of documents in front of her. It was far bigger than she had expected. This planet was closer to terkas true empire, and as a result of that was better supplied and had better fortifications and equipment than the weak enclaves they were fighting before. That was true. But still, she didn't expect nearly a dozen forms.

And she thought that reading written forms instead of discussing ideas would save her time.

She took the first form, the shortest one, and flipped it open. It was a simple request from Beta to transfer Citrine Facet-G8R1 Cut-3D from one of the support battalion into Betas retinue. The stated reason was that Beta wanted to see if quartz soldiers could be used in combat in the same manner as obsidians. Alpha knew that some other reason must have been present, as before Beta didn't want to have any retinue, and took one only after huge amounts of pressure from both Alpha and Delta.

She suspected what might have been the reason, but it was none of her business, so she simply wrote "accepted" in the empty square located in the bottom of the last page, closed the form and put it next to the pile.

She then took the second one, which was clearly the largest. Alpha opened the first page. It was from Star and Omega, of course it would be. Alpha started looking through the file. It included numerous blueprints of weapons, machines and other equipment, with descriptions for each one, including positive and negative qualities of each and possible tactics to counter such weapons. The form asked for implementation of such weaponry or tactics against such weaponry. She closed the document and gave it to Morganite, who too started flipping through it.

"I'll see what I can do." Said the orange gem.

Morganite stood up, and left the workroom, with the form in her hands.

Alpha looked at the documents that were on her table, sighed, and returned to work.

She took the next form, and flipped it open. It was from Delta. The form stated that during her assault on the satellite of the planet she had encountered huge amounts of armed orbital craft, spaceship bombardment and even flying troops. And so asked for integration of similar support for her own forces.

This request was quite a problem, as the Vulkan crusade was so lacking in nephrites, that most of their ships were already piloted by technicians. Not to mention the fact that gem armies didn't even use orbital support craft.

Alpha turned to her console and started looking through the list of gem types that were present in the crusading force. She looked through the list several times, but none of them had met the qualifications.

She looked at the request again, and got an idea.

She turned on her communicator and sent a message to the team of emeralds responsible for supervision of project "adaptation" requesting for recordings. She needed confirmation.

* * *

Beta opened the door to her quarters and saw a grey pearl. The pearl started performing the diamond salute, but stopped herself midway, remembering that it was unnecessary. Instead she moved her hand to her left thigh on which her gem was located. It started glowing and a folder appeared from it. The pearl took the folder and silently handed it to the prime obsidian in front of her. Beta took it from the pearl and thanked her. The grey gem nodded, turned around and walked away.

Beta closed the door, and walked to her worktable, one of few objects located in her quarters. She put the folder next to her prime bracelet. She took the bracelet into her hand. She could feel it's weight in her hand. She couldn't pinpoint the last time she wore it.

None of them, except for Omega, wore their bracelets. The reason was a simple one. The bracelets were forged to be worn by a prime obsidian in their true forms. Forms, which while we're exceptional in combat, were simply too massive to be functional in cycle to cycle life. That's why the tree primes that were left chose to use smaller forms.

Deltas choice was the most radical. She chose a lithe and petite frame, more fit for an aristocrat than a general, which clashed with the massive gem located in her shoulder. She chose a height of a pearl, a build in between of an aquamarine and a lapis lazuli, and facial features more similar to the later, though her features were quite sharper. She also wore longer hair than a typical lazuli gem, it reaching her shoulders.

Alpha, being quite a practical gem, had chosen a form of the gems that were engineered to work in office environments, in which the leader of the Vulkan crusade was trapped. Her form was a strange combination of an emerald, morganite and a pearl. But she still kept some features of her original form. She was almost as tall as a quartz soldier, but not even nearly as muscular, though one could see musculature in her form. Her facial features were also copied from a technician, even her hair bore a similar style.

Beta didn't bother to create such an elaborate form, she choose something which resembled her original form, but still fulfilled the reasons why a smaller form was needed at all. She simply choose a form that was most common and universal In the gem empire. The form of a simple quartz soldier. It kept all of her favorites features after all, the musculature, the facial features, the long mane of hair. And though it was merely a shadow compared to her original form, she quite enjoyed it.

She returned from her thoughts and put the bracelet back on the table. She sat down and opened the folder. It was just the form she had submitted. Beta started flipping through pages of paperwork. As the form was short she quickly reached the last page. When she saw what was written on it she quickly jumped up, grabbed the folder and ran out of her quarters.

* * *

Blue adjusted her position before returning her attention back to a book titled "Of freedom and slavery". It was a truly fascinating literary piece of the terka species. Blue couldn't imagine how such short-lived creatures could reach such enlightenment. The numerous texts gathered in the book explained different views and ideas of numerous philosphers on various subjects, but mostly freedom.

Many of these ideas were completely alien to Blue, and many more were just strange. But some resonated very strongly.

This short tome, with several others was truly invaluable to Blue, they helped her complete her change in her mind, just as she changed in her function. They helped her prepare for what was inevitable. Which while didn't happen these last cycles, would still happen in the nearest future. They helped her break her weak former shell and reforge herself. Reforge herself into a weapon, which would annihilate all opponents.

She flipped a page when there was a knock on the door. She stood up and walked to the door, moving past a massive mirror built into the wall.

A grey pearl stood in the corridor, clearly confused by who had responded.

"I am very sorry to interrupt you Ma'am. There must have been a mistake. In the database these are designated as quarters of Delta Prime obsidian."

"They are."

"Not to insult you Ma'am, but if I might ask. What does a lapis lazuli gem such as you do in quarters of a general?"

"The same you do in your masters quarters"

The grey pearl's cheeks became of dark grey colour as she lowered her head and muttered.

"Oh my…"

Blue turned her head to hide her now dark blue cheeks. She quickly calmed herself and turned back towards the pearl.

"Did you need something?" The blue gem asked, trying to change the course of conversation.

"Oh… Oh yes" The pearl moved her hands toward her gem and drew a folder out of it. She then promptly gave it to Blue and quickly left.

Blue closed the door and quickly flipped the folder open.

When she saw what was written I the last page, a smile adorned her face.

* * *

 

 


	18. Chapter 18a

Tren pulled the trigger. Another creature disappeared, it‘s form collapsing as its gem shattered. Another avenged soul, another dead monstrosity. Tren moved his rifle to the right when his equipment informed him that something started moving in the ruins again.

  
Tren gripped his rifles handle harder. It was one of the masked ones. One of the elites… Tren perfectly knew what it was capable of. He lost too many comrades to these killing machines. And he was prepared. He knew everything there was to be known about them. He searched for every single for bit of information that was collected about these mineral creatures. Their strengths, their weaknesses, how their body was only solid light, and that the gem was where every bit of their existence concentrated. Everything…

  
Terka sniper replaced his clip with one filled with specialized bullets. He changed the setting from single shot to automatic fire as he couldn‘t locate the creatures gem. He knew better than to fail against such opponents. Tren started slightly moving his rifle, following the movements of the advancing alien. He put his finger on the trigger and prepared to pull it, but a certain sound broke his concentration.

  
Quite a peculiar sound at that… He could hear massive wings flapping somewhere near. But this was impossible, wasn’t it? There was no creature near such size on this planet to make such noise, not to mention the fact that wild beasts would never approach a city, not to mention during the time like this. He must have been hearing stuff. Tren started aiming again, trying to ignore the noise, which was seemingly was getting closer and closer.

  
Suddenly something touched his back.

  
He looked up from his weapon, but there was nowhere there, but there had to be, something had touched him.

  
He jumped up, leaving his sniper rifle and drew out his automatic secondary weapon. Whatever it was, it was clearly dangerous if it wasn’t afraid to approach a terka.

  
Something moved in the pile  of ruble several steps from where Tren stood.

  
He slowly approached the pile, pointing his weapon at it.

  
It seemed like it took forever to finally reach the ruble.

  
Tren kicked at the pille, hurting his leg, but scattering most of it, revealing it to be empty.

  
The surprised terka sniper bowed down to give the remnants a better look.

  
Suddenly wings flapped behind him. Something was there…

  
Tren turned around pointing his weapon…

  
Something charged towards him…

  
He tried to press the trigger, to shoot at the creature that was charging forwards, but he was too slow…

  
The last things he saw were silver wings and black blades…

  
Obsidian turned her head to the right as she heard something moving. It was a mangled body of a terka soldier, so brutally slain one could barely recognise the creature’s features. It rolled down the ruble and stopped in the indent at the bottom, it's limbs unnaturally twisted, liquids oozing from dozens of deep cuts on its body.


	19. Chapter 18b

Zen rolled down the stairs, just barely avoiding whatever the hell was sowing death on the roof. She quickly jumped up and started running as fast as she could. She didn't even want to know what the hell it was up there, not to mention fight. She could still hear the rifle shots, which seemed to be in vain, as the screams of mutilated didn't end... Silver wings and black swords, that was all she could see, before her comrades started turning into bloody chunks and the air filled with bloody mist. It was a good thing she was near the hatch, other way she wouldn’t have survived. If seasoned veterans and trained soldiers got ripped apart so easily, what would have happened to a conscript like her…?

She fell on her knees as she realised what she had done. She had abandoned others on the rooftop, her comrades, her friends, her kin… How could she have done this? What kind of person was she after this? She ran like a coward, abandoning the paths she swore just a few cycles ago. She swore to protect this world and its people, she swore to fight until the bitter end, she swore to battle the great enemy until the day she falls in battle. And she broke every single of these oaths… The red colored light falling through the window in front of her illuminating her as the worst criminal imaginable, traitor…

She turned her head as something changed. She started listening, but everything was silent. Her eyes widened till it was painfull to continue as she realised. _Everything was silent_. The gunshots and screams had ended and not a single sound was heard from the dead building…

The artificial calmness persisted for several moments, until a new sound started ripping through the silence. Droplets of water falling to the ground…

_A pipe must have broken somewhere_. Zen thought to herself, before she remembered a piece of information, which was hammered into every soldier before deployment. That water, energy and gasses aren’t supplied to any of the warzones, as not to waste any resources. This meant that while some of these resources were left in the systems, they weren't supposed to be in such numbers that something like this would be possible.

The tapping increased in speed and intensity. Something was happening. Something unnatural, something unexplainable.

Zen stood up, gripping her assault rifle harder and pointing it towards the direction from which she could hear the tapping. She slowly started mowing backwards, carefully retreating from the sound of water droplets splashing against the floor.

After several dozen steps backwards she stepped into red light. She quickly glanced at the direction from which the light is falling. It was a massive window, somehow still intact from all the bombardment and fighting in the city. After looking at the window Zen turned her eyes to the other side. It was the main hall of the floor, seemingly empty.

Something moved slightly in the corner.

Terka soldier fell on one knee and pointed her rifle to the movement she saw…

The red light went dim…

Zen quickly turned around…

A massive winged shadow was eclipsing all light…

The assault rifle started spewing bullets into the dark mass…

The window broke down, bullets piercing it through…

The shadow surged forwards…

The last thing Zen saw were silver eyes shining in the darkness…


	20. Chapter 18c

Cera gripped her rifle tighter as she slowly strode forward. Her batallion and the artillery column followed her forwards. 

One could easily taste the unnerve in the air which always followed the divisions and battalions who were relocating to other positions. This nervousness while relocating was somewhat of a new development, as typically advancement to forward positions happened when the enemy was completely driven out by either aerial bombardment or artillery barrage. But could one be sure with these monsters?

There were numerous incidents when soldiers would advance into seemingly purged fortifications, which were bombarded by shells for cycles, only for it to turn out that the aliens somehow had survived, and we're able to break he assault.

Numerous times it seemed that you had killed the creature, only for it to turn out that it’s gem was undamaged and the creature was able to reform behind terka lines and start sowing death.

Just as numerous were the times when it seemed that a strategy for either void or land warfare was devised, to break them on at least one world, to somehow push them back. And when the victory seemed near the enemy would adapt and push back, to the brutal status quo. To the grinding and stagnant war, which was continuing for the last three planet cycles. 

Someone in the council of generals had equated the enemy to hidri, the many headed serpent of terka myth. The comparison was very fitting. Just like the great serpent, these “gems” struck at many targets at once. Just like the serpent they were incredibly ferocious and enduring. And when you though that you were at least one step closer to victory, when you were pushing the invader out of a world, you cut one of the serpents heads off, the invader, like the serpent which regrew it’s head, would strike with double ferocity. And the brutal battle would rage anew...

Cera and her troops finally reached their destination. They secured the perimeter, with a few nasty surprises as even after bombardment several shards had survived and we’re able to reform. After it they started to fortify by digging both hideouts and trenches, reinforcing them with ruble and plates of different metals that were left after bombardment. Artillery was also fortified and prepared for battle. 

After the front part of the new fortifications was ready, the terka soldiers started fortifying the facility from all sides.

They were in the middle of this when the communication links came to life. 

“To all units in zone 09, battle formation, battle formation.” It was one of the scouts, other way they would know that coordinates of each unit present in zone 09.” Several enemy fliers are aproaching, I repeat, several enemy flie...” 

The transmission was broken by static. The scout was eliminated by the enemy. 

After hearing the transmission soldiers started panicking. The enemy used only one type of flying unit. Creatures terka nicknamed “headhunters”. They were lithe and agile beings, flying on two silver wings. Most of them used some sort of automatic ballistic weapons and a pair of black sabers. And while this didn't seem much, there was one problem.

There was no known way to kill them. They easily took out interceptors, they evaded even the most powerful anti air weaponry, and even took out entire divisions fully equipped with flak weaponry. There was no hope against such an enemy.

And now a group of those were arriving to sector 09.

Cera loaded her gun with explosive rounds and pointed it towards the sky as the sound of wings slashing through the air could be heard from the distance...


	21. Chapter 19

Blue jumped down from the massive empty platform onto the cold metal floor of the battleship. The room was empty, except for Delta who was waiting for her next to the gate which led out of the chamber. When blue gem approached the prime obsidian, she turned and walked out of the chamber, Blue followed.

They walked silently through the corridors of the spacecraft, barely encountering any other gems, as everyone was either deployed or resting in their sections of the ship. After some time they entered an even emptier section of the ship. These were the quarters of the prime obsidians and other important or high standing personnel. After some time they reached their shared quarters and Delta opened the door.

Both gems walked through the heavily fortified door into the huge room which served as a workspace. There was a huge table in the middle of the room so that Delta could hold meetings with her subordinates for those times when the giant meeting room in the bowels of the ship couldn't be used. Next to it stood several smaller tables with consoles. Along the walls were aligned several cupboards filled with various documents.

The door closed behind them, leaving them completely isolated from all surroundings.

Blue collapsed on the ground, tears streaming down her face, sobs ripping through her shaking body. Delta sat down next to her. She didn't try to calm the blue gem, she learned that this was useless after the first several times. The only way she could help was by being there and listening.

After some time, the sobs dyed downs and the lapis lazuli started talking.

"I can still see their faces… The pain, the terror as their gems broke apart… Their screams still echo in my ears… I betrayed them! I was their leader, I was supposed to protect them, to find a way to win without losses, and I lead them to their shattering. I lead them into a suicide mission…"

"None of this is your fault Lappy… You couldn't have done anything… There was no way to prevent this."

Delta knew her words were just a repeat of what she said several cycles ago, but she didn't care anymore. She was too tired to think of anything else. She could barely hold herself for Lappy. If not for her, Delta wou!d have broken down long ago.

She wanted to scream until her voicebox and lungs would rip appart. She wanted to break everything in her sight, until her hands were completely shaterred, and unusable anymore. She wanted to run endlessly, until her legs would break. She wanted, no she needed respite from this endless hell…

"I lost most of my group… What kind of leader I am after this? How can I look into the eyes of those who lost their friends because of me? How can I continue doing this with all of these shardings on my conciousnes?"

Delta didn't answer, she didn't know how. What could she say to someone who experienced such trauma. She could barely comprehend such losses, not to mention how it felt to experience something like that herself.

There was nothing more to be said. And so they sat there, on the floor, their backs against the door, in complete silence.

* * *

 

The report smacked hard against the table, falling completely appart, pages flying everywhere.

"Ninety percent losses!" Morganite nervously walked around her cabinet, silently murmuring to herself.

The lapis lazuli assault teams were nearly wiped out during the last assault. And while the reserve was quite massive, due to the fact how numerous the former generation of Lapis lazuli gems were, with such losses they would run out of flying troops before the middle point of the crusade was reached. And something had to be done about this as Lapis lazuli gems were the only way the crusaders had to counter terka sky based forces and to quickly fill up the holes in battle lines.

They were also partly terror weapons, which was very valuable when trying to break terka forces. This raised problems, due to the fact that for this to work, the enemy could only know that these forces were winged and used two sabers. For this reason, any enemy that the assault teams encountered had to be exterminated completely.

But this raised even more problems, due to the fact that a lapis lazuli simply couldn't sustain a form strong enough to carry weapons strong enough or long ranged enough to combat either terka land or air forces. Which only left a brutal melee assault as the only option. Which off course meant massive amounts off casualties.

But there was no way to solve this. Morganite searched for a way to solve this problem for the last ten planet cycles as they were readying and equiping the lapis lazuli gems and plowing through the last of the barely colonized enclaves and the few occasional terka military outposts.

And yet even though she wasn't able to find anything, that could not be easily countered by terka weaponry for a dozen cycles. Assault team leaders and land force commanders requested something to be done now.

The scientist fell onto her chair, rubbing the orange gem on her neck to calm herself. She turned on her console, maybe she would find something in the archives. Maybe someone had found any blueprints and uploaded it to the archives, or maybe she had missed something.

She looked through everything she could find, but to her frustration, there was nothing that would change her situation. The weapons she found were either too weak to harm interceptors, or too heavy to be carried by a lapis lazuli.

She turned off the archive and stared blankly at her console screen. She had completely runout of ideas.

"Well, I have wasted so much time, this won't change anything." She murmured to herself as she turned on the program.

As the program turned on, the screen split into two. Two columns with different illustrations or blueprints of weapons or other equipment started moving into opposite directions, stopping after a designated amount of time, putting one picture from each column between two lines that ran through the screen. But after some time, without further input, the columns would start moving again.

This program was designed by Morganite to save her from situations such as this. Before her experiences serving under the obsidian council she would have never relied on such a program, which lacked any logic and was completely based on randomness, as her saviour. But several events fought her that sometimes the answer is so illogical or unconventional, that one would simply be unable to find it by using common sense or logic.

She hoped that this was a similar situation, even thought the last few combinations proposed by the program were completely useless. She assured herself that first combinations were never usefull. And after all previous times proved to be successful,did they not?

She kept assuring herself with those arguments as the number of proposed combinations slowly climbed through the hundreds and later thousands.

She held herself calm and kept looking at the screen even as fear started gripping through her core. This didn't impact her in any direct way, but if a solution was not found the entire crusade could collapse.

And so she kept waiting.

And so she kept watching.

After the second cycle passed and almost all of the possible combinations were made, Morganite gave up. She leaned slightly forward, ready to turn off the program and after that the console as the last combination appeared on the screen. Morganites fingers stopped just above the button as she noticed what combination was proposed to her.

Instead of the "close"button, she pressed "pause"and started analysing the combination. Something seemed strangely right about it, even though this equipment was completely different in purpose and quite different in design. She quickly opened another program and hastily threw together a primitive and very basic blueprints After that a gallery was opened and a certain picture pulled up and put next to the blueprints.

A smile appeared on Morganites face as everything fell into place.


	22. Chapter 20

Beta walked down the street of a ruined city. She would always look around the recently fallen enemy settlements, after the last pockets of resistance had fallen. The prime obsidian didn't know what compelled her to act this way, but it just somehow felt right.

Ruins lined up the road from both sides, massive holes wracking their previously aesthetically pleasing exterior. These buildings were still somewhat standing, as they were closer to the city centre, and so weren't bombarded for long. A massive contrast form the outskirts.

The outer layers of the city were completely gone, nothing more than piles of rubble and bodies. There wasn't a single building which wasn't bombarded. Everything was annihilated so that enemy simply couldn't have any positions from which to defend the city. After the outer layers, which contained most fortifications were destroyed the gem armies would surge into now mostly defenceless cities.

Such way of taking a city was a very elongated and a very brutal affair. It was originally based on the fact that gems could fight for huge amounts of time without any supplies, while organic creatures required rest and nutrition. Supposedly, because of this, the organic armies would crumble under the unending gem assaults as they would be constantly denied their necessities.

But Alpha and Omega, who had devised all of the strategies just after the first battle, failed to notice a very important fact. A cornered organic creature had nowhere to retreat, nowhere to escape. An organic creature cornered in its home fought not only for itself, but also for its mate and for its offspring. An organic creature cornered like this fought with the ferocity unmatched by even the most brutal of Sharded.

Every street became a battleground. Every floor of every building was covered  with bodies of killed terka and litered with gems, either broken or just poofed. Every step was fought for. Every street became a brutal brawl. Every city block became a battleground. Every city became a war onto itself.

Beta hated this. This wasn't the war she was created for, she told to herself. This was brutal, insane, and chaotic. A war where victors were determined not by their martial prowess, but by numbers of bullets and ability to hide quickly. A conflict where only numbers mattered: numbers of shells, numbers of assaults, numbers of bullets, numbers of enemies, and numbers of shards…

She didn't know why she felt this way, nobody else expressed such feelings. In fact some even showed open enjoyment at such a gruesome way of war. Many obsidians openly smiled as they were forced to fight for every step, and she could swear she had heard several lapis lazuli gems laughing maniacally when evading anti-air fire, even when their comrades were completely obliterated by the shells.

This unnerved the prime obsidian greatly. Why couldn't she enjoy performing her purpose? Why did she saw this warfare like this, even though she and others like her were created to fight it? Was she made wrong? Was she defective?

These doubts had persecuted the dark grey gem ever since the crusade had approached the more fortified planets of the terka realm, and the conflict had truly begun to escalate. And no matter how she tried to assure herself, no matter how many times she went to Morganite. They disappeared only briefly, and would always return after battle, no matter how great it was.

And this time was no different...

* * *

 

Citrine was waiting for her in the main room. The quartz soldier was sitting next to the huge table and performing a task she loved to do, polishing her battle-axe. She performed this after each battle, even though the weapon was rarely used, as it was quite unwieldy in the tight corridors in which most of close quarters combat now occurred.

Beta walked to the table and sat in front of her quartz companion. They both sat in silence for some time. The yellow quartz was busy maintaining her weapon, while the prime obsidian was still contemplating her resurgent.

Beta looked directly at Citrine and something occurred to her. The yellow quartz was older than her and fought in other campaigns that had happened before the crusade. She could know why Beta felt this way about the war with the terka.

The black gem asked Citrine to tell her stories about the wars and campaigns she took part in. And with a smile, which Beta absolutely adored, on her face yellow quartz began telling stories.

She told the prime obsidian of completely forest covered worlds, where four or even five quartzes had to fuse to even be able to fight the great monsters of the jungle.

She told the obsidian about a world, seemingly dotted with numerous hills on its otherwise almost even surface. Only for the hills to turn out to be hives of huge insects, which reached the size of rubies, and could even overwhelm topazes with absolutely massive numbers.

She told her about a moon, whose outer layer was covered in thick ice, but inner layer contained blind monstrosities, which stalked and assaulted gems from complete darkness they lived in.

Citrine told Beta stories for nearly a cycle, pride in her past victories, clearly visible in her posture and gesture. The prime obsidian listened closely, completely fascinated with stories of what she had never experienced, but wanted to with every fibre of her gem and her form. Wars she knew she was destined to fight in. Campaigns for which she was made for.

And after the quartz ran out of stories the obsidian asked her.

"Does this war remind you of those?"

The yellow gem seemed quite surprised at the question, and simply sat silently for some time before answering. And when she did spoke, every word was carefully chosen.

"No, this is not like those wars… This is not a war a proper warrior gem could enjoy.

We were created with powerful forms, so that we would be strong and be able to wield great weapons. We were made to fight great beasts and monsters. We were forged to fight champions. To take the enemy head on and defeat them in melee combat.

And yet now…

Now we are forced to run around and hide like cowards. To negate our purpose by using ballistic weaponry, copied from a lesser organic race none the less! To adapt their tactics, their technology, like we were the weaker ones!

No this is not like those wars, it will never be…"


	23. 21

Alpha sighed as confirmations of victory came from all deployed forces. _Finally, it was finally over_. It took the crusaders nearly half a dozen planet cycles to finally take over the C-158 system.

This was a pure fiasco to say the absolute least. The system was comprised of nearly three dozen planetoids, only two of which were densely populated and twice that were well defended. This was supposed to be a brutal quick assault, meant to completely crush the stretched out defense forces, who would be forced to try to defend every single planet or moon, just to deny the gems access to vanguard bases. Every move, every assault, every deployment, everything was planned and scheduled.

A brutal onslaught using the entirety of the gem fleet was supposed to erase any and all space bound vessels and orbital defenses. Then millions upon millions of obsidian gems would be deployed on the planetoids, to simply overrun the terka defenders on the objects. And if somehow any planetoid or fortress would be able to hold out, any possible forces would be rerouted to finish the siege quickly. To drown the enemy in gem shards, if needed…

Everything was prepared for a swift, if brutal victory. But after the first assault began, every plan and every preparation started spectacularly failing…

Firstly the gem battleship failed to defeat the terka fleet as there was a far greater concentration of vessels capable of engaging in space than was expected and due to this several small craft escaped, and were able to call for reinforcements, even as interstellar communication was cut off. This meant that complete domination of space was impossible due to the fact that terka sent massive amounts of combat capable vessels to the system. And while the crusader fleet could have overwhelmed the reinforcing fleet, they would have lost too many ships, not to mention the gem casualties.

And so, the space battle turned into a set of long and complex engagements as both sides were afraid to lose valuable ships and so most of the battles were based on outmaneuvering and cutting of the enemy, which was close to impossible in the vastness of space. But after some time, terka fleets were pushed back and were unable to fully prevent gems for deploying upon the planetoids, though they were able to force the crusading forces to land far from any important facilities or cities. Reaching those targets took huge amounts of time.

Given time Terka fortified their cities and prepared to defend them. And with constant reinforcements and supply drops, they could possibly continue on doing this forever. Quick warfare ended, Alpha planned, ended before it began. A brutal grind started. A grind where every step was paid for with shattered gems. A grind without any meaning, without any progress…

A new set of strategies were devised, to change this stagnant war, mostly by the initiative of Omega and Delta. The Prime obsidian had initiated the creation of an aerial force after encountering huge amounts of aerial support for the ground forces. She stated that if the crusade was to succeed, these were needed to be countered. And so the "Lazuli" corps were created, comprised of lapis lazuli gems trained by Star and armed with lighter versions of the same rifles that sharded used.

Omega on the other hand, had devised a new main battle doctrine. The main principle of it was based the idea that the enemy needed rest, but gems didn't. This was a well-known fact beforehand, but the silver obsidian looked at the fact from a different angle.

The constant assaults upon terka positions were stopped and gem soldiers were drawn back. And then the unending bombardment by artillery, supported by constant small arms fire would begin. This would continue up until the enemy was unable to fight back anymore, or everything in the vicinity was turned into ruble, then the gems would advance and take up new positions. Then, the process would be repeated again and again. This would continue until the terka couldn't simply defend anymore. Then every member of the organic race who had survived up until that point would be exterminated and the city would be declared as taken.

A unique strategy, to say the absolute least, but quite fitting the mindset of its creator.

And with these reforms and innovations, the gems started pushing back the terka armies. Planet after planet fell under the brutal march of victorious crusaders. Any tries to break through were encircled and slaughtered by the sharded. Any aerial support or escape was hunted down by the lazuli gems.

Victory was achieved…

But Alpha despised such a victory.

She was a pragmatic gem, not limited by the traditional mindset of the homeworld. She wouldn't have suggested that lapis gems should be conscripted if she wasn't. But still, this felt wrong. It felt fake, unnatural. It was a victory, but it felt like a defeat. It felt like giving up. It didn't give any satisfaction…

Her soldiers felt similarly, she knew that. Her lieutenants and generals kept warning her that obsidians and other soldier gems under their control were on the line of rebellion. They hated having to sit in the trenches just protecting the artillery pieces while the enemy was pounded into ruble. They hated the slow advances and building of fortifications. They hated the fact that some terraformers were the ones doing most of the fighting, while they were sitting in their positions. The novelty of ballistic weapons and firing formations had long ago worn of, and now the gems craved for melee again.

And Alpha completely understood them. She had seen the blueprints for her soldiers. Obsidians were quite the unique type of gem. They were the only type of gem to be harvested on volcanic worlds, not to mention the only soldier gem with an incubation time of a century. But even with such a short incubation time, obsidians were as strong as quartzes.

In other words, obsidians were perfect foot soldiers. But there was a problem with that. They didn't want to be foot soldiers. They were created not like rubies, who would be satisfied by just participating in battle. They were created, and to some extent based on quartzes. And so they wished for true battle, for a challenge… They were created to be aggressive, as it was needed to fulfill their purpose. But lacking the outlet for their aggression they would become more and more aggressive until they would inevitably start attacking their own comrades. Friendly brawls wouldn't help anymore.

Alpha just hoped that the soldiers respect, and to a bigger extent their fear of Omega and the sharded would keep them at bay, until a solution is found.


	24. Chapter 22

The survivors cried and cuddled together in the cramped room. The conditions in the room were extremely unhygienic, but such trivial things didn‘t matter anymore. After the insanity of the Heliaziari system many were just happy to be safe.

The brutal battle, which lasted for six grueling years, had changed all who lived through it. Especially the ones who were able to survive through the massacre on the fifth world. One could easily identify those who had suffered on that cursed place for those years.

Empty eyes, emotionless faces, always hunched figures and twitches defined the survivors of the world that had become nightmare incarnate. These terka would sit or lay alone, their families, friends, and loved ones dead either by combat or the purges. And Sera herself was no exception. She was sitting in the corner, alone and afar from other survivors, completely removed from what was happening around her.

She saw no point in anything anymore. After what she had witnessed every action every idea seemed banal and idiotic compared to the insanity that still plagued her mind. Life seemed useless now... Just a doomed attempt to fight against the unforgiving universe. A fight against a virulent plague which swept world after world, system after system, evolving and becoming stronger after every failed try to stop them. 

Others had sworn oaths of vengeance, that they will fight until enemy is broken, that they will push back the invaders, that they shall retake all the worlds that have been lost, that for every lost innocent tens of these monsters will be slaughtered.  

She herself haven‘t committed suicide only because she was the last member of her family, which meant that it was her duty to further the bloodline. 

The second reason was closely intermingled with the first one, as she now lived so that she could bear and raise the child which was currently developing inside her.

After those objectives have been fulfilled she could finally let go of this pitiful existence...

A hand landed on her shoulder and broke off her nihilistic thoughts. 

Sera looked up. 

The scarred veteran who had put his hand on her shoulder opened his mouth and spoke with an incredibly fought tone, a sign of someone desensitized by all the bloodshed that they had seen. 

„Are you the survivor from the massacre?“

„Yes“ Sera muttered out, barely opening her mouth.

The veteran removed his hand from her shoulder and stood straight. 

„The captain requests your purpose in headquarters at this instant. “

Sera slowly stood up, her muscles cramped from the long period without movement. The soldier walked out from the room and Sera followed him. 

They walked through the ship, which was as cramped as the room they had just left.  Even the corridors were full of refugees and survivors, who blocked them, slowing down the soldier and the survivors. 

After some time they approached a hastily built fortified door, guarded by two warriors, wearing full suits of armor and were holding weapons which produced strange crackling sounds. Both of the guardians were massive in compared to Sera and the veteran who was accompanying her. 

The soldier nodded and one of the guardians opened the door allowing them to pass.

Behind the door was an empty room, with only two chairs, one of which was occupied by another veteran wearing a highly decorated uniform, indicating his possibly high rank. She gestured Sera to sit down on the chair in front of her.

Sera complied and sat down. 

“Are you Sera, of house Kreaon?”

“Yes”

“Are you truly the last survivor of the slaughter on Heliaziari five?”

“Yes”

“Could you describe, as detailed as possible, what exactly happened on that world, in the city you were located, during the last year?”

“Yes, off course” Affirmed Sera, without a sign of any emotion on her face, even as the ceiling opened and mechanical limbs equipped with recording devices lowered at her face level and started to perform their function. She barely kept herself from breaking down as memories of the insanity returned, but was able to hold herself and her voice steady as she told the grim tale 

“For most of the war they would surge forwards, onto our defenses. We gunned them down, while being supported by aerial craft and artillery. They broke against us like liquid trying to move the immovable. 

And then, something shifted in the minds of the eldritch abominations that led these hordes.

They retreated out of our cities and started digging in and fortifying their positions. Why they did so, nobody knew, but reclaiming of former positions started. Hopes and morale went up. Some idealists even claimed that the enemy had no more troops to continue assault. They claimed that this was the reason why their ships never fully engaged ours. We were caught by the waves of optimism…

We were fools…

This was not the end of the storm, it was just the beginning…

Massive artillery weapons were brought in, and while those were readied, winged creatures, nicknamed headhunters were let loose upon our forces.

One by one our aerial craft were brought out of the sky. Scout teams disappeared into nowhere. Entire forward battalions were wiped out. And then, when the gun placements were secured, the enemy showed how otherworldly cruel they truly were. 

At dawn, as the twin suns rose over horizon, a rain of iron started falling from the sky. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of artillery shells rained down onto city. Soldiers were vaporized in seconds, buildings were erased in minutes. Entire defensive fortifications, which held back endless tides for months were levelled into the ground in mere hours. Shells were so numerous and so intense that they leveled everything into a completely even plain, except for a massive ditch that was located in the middle of the molten flat ground and surrounded entirety of the city. 

They advanced into their forward positions which were prepared by their unending rain of iron, and then, the process began anew…

Day, after day, shell after shell, shot after shot, layer after layer of the city were broken and crushed under the unending storm of artillery barrages… Tens of millions, who were unable to escape, were brutalized by this onslaught; industrial sectors were molten by the sheer heat of the intensity. Any try to break through was met by the masked monstrosities and butchered like cattle. Any way to escape by air was brought down by the winged hunters. We were trapped…

And then, when streets of the city became too wide to defend, when the defenders ran out of both ammunition and weaponry, when there was simply no way to hold back the enemy, the true nightmare began…

At first the silver giant and his masked butchers lifted themselves from their trenches and marched through our barely defended city, desecrating our military tradition, by imitating military marches from our history. 

They reached the center, their military parade awakening shards of hope; that maybe the enemy will simply conquer, but we were wrong. It was simply a ruse to allow their full force to completely surround the city…

Streets ran blue as these butchers descended upon the city with only their melee weapons, maiming and ripping apart every single living creature that came in their way. Their blades slick with blood of those who still tried to defend their families and loved ones… Their hands dripping with life fluids of children and infants… Their feet marching through the remnants of innocents… 

But from all of these millions of monsters, two were the most nightmarish… 

The first one was the silver giant. The name is fitting for the monster. It is a massive beast, towering over its troops, it’s silver body far lighter than the bodies of the butchers it led into slaughter. It was like a demigod of ancient legend, dismembering entire crowds with but a few swings, it’s massive blade crushing and ripping, instead of cutting the bodies appart.

The second one was far more unnerving. It was tiny, compared to the silver giant, not even reaching its chest, but even more ferocious. While the silver giant was like a force of nature, brutishly sloughtering everything in its path, it was different. It specifically hunted down aristocrats, and then slowly killed them. Many of these elites naturally tried to fight against this creature using their own blades, but even when the beast was impeller, it would only smile and then drive it’s on weapon trough the chest of its current opponent…”

“Thank you for your input, this will be enough” The officer in front of her interrupted her.

Sera stood up and walked out of the room.


	25. Chapter 23

Obsidian realized that something was wrong when she tried to open her eyes, and yet nothing happened. She knew that she hadn’t been poofed, as she could still fell her projection and could still interface it, but couldn’t fell anything outside of it.   
This inability was only worsened by the fact that, she couldn’t remember anything that had happened after her last battle, and so had no idea what happened to her and were she was currently located. And due her bodies inability to fulfil its function she couldn’t find out.   
This strange limbo dragged out for some time. She tried to interface her body again and again, but failed every time, something was preventing her from interfacing it. She started examining every part of the body, and yet found nothing wrong with the projection; everything was the same to the blueprints located in the core of her gem.   
Maybe her gem was unable to provide enough energy?  
Impossible, if this truly was the case, it would not be able to support her body and it would poof.   
Was her gem somehow damaged?  
Negative, everything was seemingly intact.  
Everything seemed perfectly functional, and so, she tried to interface senses of her projected body again. This time, it worked.  
The first thing she was able to understand, was that she kneeling against a hard surface, her hands and legs restrained, her hands behind her back, her legs beneath her. She tried to shapeshift her body, so that she could free herself, but for some reason it didn’t work.  
Second sense to become available was sight, and her eyes began to adjust towards the light of her surroundings.   
She started looking around and saw that she was not the only obsidian in the room, countless others were in the same position as her, and we’re also looking around. Obsidian presumed that just like her, they weren’t yet able to speak or hear anything. And so she continued examining the room around her.   
The room itself was massive as obsidian could barely see the ceiling or walls so far they were from her. There was only one light source, which went in a straight line, parallel to how the restrained obsidians were lined up.   
The third sense to return was hearing. Obsidian understood this from the fact that her ears were filled with several difficult to describe sounds. Other obsidians seemingly also noticed the sound as they stopped looking around and focused, possibly on trying to understand the sound, but to no avail.  
And thenz something started shifting and moving in front of the obsidian’s. A fist it seemed that the wall right in front of them was moving towards them, but ass the movement came closer to them they were able to see that it was not the wall, but a rank gem soldiers.  
Thee gem soldiers entered the zone where their forms were fully illuminated by the light. And now that they were fully visible, Obsidian wanted to scream.  
Their faces were covered by a metal masks, without any facial features except for holes drilled where the wearer’s forms eyes would be, so that they could see. Their bodies were bigger than any quartz or obsidian and we’re completely hidden under a projected bodysuit. Massive ballistic weapons rested in their hands as they stood in front of the lined up gems.  
Obsidian was absolutely terrified seeing these things standing in front of her. These were no mere obsidian soldiers, but something far far more terrifying and deadly. They were the most brutal and savage warriors the Universe had ever seen. These were soldiers powerful enough to crush armies. These were the beings which had scared the rebellious elements of gem legions into submission and cooperation. These were the gems who matched the great defect in combat ability and served as it’s own personal army.   
They were the sharded.   
The rank of the sharded split, and to Obsidians surprise the pearl which belonged to the silver defect walked out. She gazed through all of them and then began speaking.

  
“I presume that none of you have any idea why you are here and your physical forms are restrained like this.  
It’s because you have shown yourselves to be unreliable and uncontrollable.”

  
What is she talking about? Thought obsidian to herself as the pearl spoke.

The weird sound started becoming louder

  
“You were unable to control your basic instinct and due to this, as the battles for the worlds of the enemy you, wishing to satisfy your lust for brutality, began attacking your own comrades.”

  
This was impossible! An gem warrior wouldn’t attack another one without an order from a commanding officer! Would they?  
The sound was nearly a loud as the speech of the pearl.

  
“For this reason, you shall all be punished!”

  
The sharded prepared their weapons and started aiming. Obsidian and other gems started to struggle, but were unable to free themselves, they didn’t know what this punishment was, but they didn’t want to risk.  
The sound now was so loud that the defective pearl in front of them literally screamed out her words.  
The pearl raised her right hand.

  
“Lock targets”

  
With horror Obsidian realized that the sharded in front of her started aiming for her gem, which was located on her back. They were going to shoot through her physical form until her gem would broke.  
She tried to move herself again, and strangely this time the restraints felt far more rough and hard on her hands and legs, as if her form had become more receptive for outside stimulus...

  
“Fire” Screamed the pearl.  
As ability to use her vocal box returned to Obsidian, the only sound she could produce were screams.


	26. Chapter 24

Surveillance equipment unable to provide visuals

Analysis performed

Substantial damage inflicted on the lenses

Sound recording devices still operational

Enhancing sound capture

Beginning sound forwarding

Sounds of blades cutting through some sort of material can be heard, sometimes broken through by a strange sounding whimpers and grunts.

The grunts keep increasing in speed and intensity. The device picks up a sound, which can only be identified as something massive ripping through some sort of material.

The grunts end.

A short silence follows.

The silence is interrupted by someone. The voice is low pitched and deep, implying a creature of quite considerable size.

"Is something wrong?" The words sound slightly guttural.

"What? No. What do you mean?" A second voice answers. It's of a higher pitch compared to the former one, and far more understandable.

"You are clearly unable to focus." The speech of the first person slightly changed, now sounding far less like a savage snarl and more like normal speech. The booming effect is also gone, as if the creature's lung capacity had also diminished. "It's unusual for you."

A short pause followed. Then the first creature started talking again.

"It's about her again?"

"Yes…" The second one answered reluctantly.

"She still can't get over the shock?" The first creature sounds dumbfounded, as if unable to understand the situation of the implied person.

"I think it has gotten worse."

"Worse?"

"Before she mostly lacked motivation, now she completely gave up. She doesn't come to train anymore, and neither spends her time on strategies. She doesn't want to talk about weapons, combat, strategies… It seems that she doesn't want to do anything with combat anymore.

I simply cannot understand such change… Before she was so interested in fighting, so devoted to learning how to duel… She told me several times, that while wielding her blades she felt like flying, she felt free and powerful, she loved felling like this…

But now…"

Later conversation was impossible to decrypt as something of a quite considerable size started moving around the chamber interrupting the sound recordig. The only thing that was possible to decrypt from this part of the recording was that both speakers were having some sort of an argument, which ended as one of them left the chamber.

Sound forwarding stopped

Sound recording stopped

Surveillance equipment shutting down

Accessing communication channels

Addressee picked

Connecting

Connecting

Connection secured

*How may I serve you?*

*Contact everyone who is located in and near commanding officer quarters. Order them all to leave or enter their quarters*

*As you command. Anything else*

*Send a dozen teams of technicians to the sector, their abilities will be needed. If enough teams can't be located on the flagship, relocate ones from other ships."

*Eight peridot teams, located on the flagship, are on their way. Four teams will be sent over from other ships.*

*Inform them to keep their distance until informed otherwise*

*As you command*

Connection ended

Accessing communication channels

Addressee picked

Connecting

Connecting

Connection secured

*What do you need? I'm not in the mood for talks*

*Are your weapons nearby?*

*What are you talking about? Why would we need our weapons?*

*We don't have time! Are your weapons nearby!*

*Yes, we have them cl… -sounds of something breaking, followed by screaming-*

Connection ended

Accessing sound capture systems

Enhancing sound capture

Beginning sound forwarding

"What the hell is wrong with…" The sentence is interrupted by shots from a clearly high caliber ballistic weapon. The gunshots are followed by a clink from a gem falling to the ground.

This is followed by a cacophony of roars, screams, shots and clinks from clashing blades.

Recording device damaged


End file.
